#627 ASA PLAY ON Butler +7.5 over Xavier, Tuesday at 8 PM ET - Butler has been a money maker away from home this year with a 7-3 ATS record (road & neutral games) and we think they pick up another cover tonight @ Xavier. The Bulldogs have a solid recipe of covering as a dog (8-5 ATS in that role) as they shoot the 3 very well (25th nationally) and defend the 3 very well (32nd nationally). They also are fairly solid taking care of the ball ranking 4th in the Big East in offensive turnover rate. The Bulldogs also get to the FT line a lot (30th nationally in percentage of points from the charity stripe) and they make 74%. Those traits make this team a dangerous road dog and for the most part their Big East games away from home have been tight. They lost @ Georgetown by 3, lost @ UConn in OT, and lost @ St John’s by 8. After starting 0-6 in Big East play, the Bulldogs are playing well now having won 3 straight and 5 of their last 8 games with 2 of their 3 losses during that stretch coming by 2 & 3 points. Xavier has won 7 of their last 10 but many of those games were tight contests with 5 of those 7 wins coming by single digits. XU only has 3 Big East wins of more than 9 points this season and those games were vs Seton Hall and DePaul (twice), the 2 worst teams in the conference and the only 2 not ranked in the top 100 per KenPom. Butler will give Xavier all they can handle here in what we anticipate will be a close game.