posted February 29, 2008 at 18:08 EST in NCAA B Betting Trends

The West Virginia Mountaineers (20-8 SU, 12-9-1 ATS) will go after its fifth win in six tries on Saturday when they visit Storrs, CT to play the U-Conn Huskies (22-6 SU, 12-10-2 ATS) in a Big East game with big implications. Tipoff time is Noon ET on Saturday.

Here are some of the NCAA college basketball betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

* WVA has won four of its last five games SU

* WVA is 5-1-1 ATS in its last seven games

* WVA has played seven of its last 11 games UNDER the total

* WVA has covered four of its last five road games

* CONN has won 11 of its last 12 games SU

* CONN has covered one of its last four games

* CONN has played seven of its last ten games UNDER the total

* CONN has won its last six home games SU

* CONN is 4-1-1 ATS in its last six home games

* CONN has played four of its last five home games UNDER the total

* CONN has won and covered four of the last five meetings

* Four of the last five meetings have gone OVER the total

* CONN has had the shooting edge in four of the last five meetings

* CONN has had the rebounding edge in each of the last five meetings

* WVA has made more three-pointers in three of the last four meetings

It is a very crowded Big East picture, and the expanded and improved conference should have a lot of NCAA bids when they are announced. West Virginia wants one of those bids, but with eight defeats, and the conference tourney upcoming, there is no guarantee of that. And that's why we would expect a monster effort out of Bob Huggins' team, which may go through some shooting dry spells but does not offer a lot of easy opportunities to the other side (just 10.6 turnovers a game).

Obviously, you must respect the presence of a shot blocker like Haseem Thabeet in the middle for U-Conn. And we don't have to go over the Huskies' string of wins since mid-January that took them from being a borderline tournament team to one of the favorites in the Big East and a virtual certainty to go to the Big Dance. But of their 11 wins in 12 games, eight of them have been by seven points or less. The Mountaineers hit enough threes (7.6 per game) to close a gap, and have shown credible form lately, with four wins in the last five games.

West Virginia is without a lot of big road wins, so this is an opportunity. We will grab the points with them in the BetUS NCAA college basketball betting odds.

JAY'S PREDICTION: CONNECTICUT BY 3

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(Charles Jay of http://www.eBookies.com gives it the old college try as a regular contributor to the BetUS Locker Room)