The heart of the college basketball season is starting! No. 19 Texas Tech takes on No. 1 Baylor, it's time to continue our college basketball odds series with a Texas Tech-Baylor prediction and pick.
Texas Tech is fresh off of their biggest win of the season, knocking off No. 6 Kansas 75-67. What's crazy is that they won without their two leading scorers, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Kevin McCullar both missed the win over Kansas. The Red Raiders improve to 11-3 and it moved them up six spots to No. 19 in the rankings. With a win over Baylor, surely they could move into the top-15 or even top-10.
Top-ranked Baylor looks to continue their hot run against another good Big-12 team. The Bears are coming off a 12-point win over TCU and Oklahoma before that. James Akinjo leads the team in scoring at 14.4 points per game and has 6.1 assists and 2.2 steals per game to go along with it. This team is carried by guards and that is where their success comes from. They like to keep it small and force mismatches in the defense.
Here are the Texas Tech college basketball odds, courtesy of FanDuel.
College Basketball Odds: Texas Tech-Baylor Odds
Texas Tech: +12 (-110)
Baylor: -12 (-110)
Over: 135.5 (-110)
Under: 135.5 (-110)
*Watch College Basketball Games LIVE with fuboTV (click for free trial)
Why Texas Tech Could Cover The Spread
The Red Raiders are feeling great about their win over Kansas. They defeated a good team without their two leading scorers. The issue is that they will need one of them to return if they want to win this game, or at least cover this spread. It looks like b0th will be missing tonight's game. They will need to rely on the players that won them the game over Kansas and hope that this outing goes as smoothly. The Red Raiders haven't beaten Baylor on the road since 2016, so it's been a while since Texas Tech had any advantage.
Texas Tech is 10-0 this year when they score at least 75 points. Scoring is going to be the biggest factor in this game because they will need to keep up with Baylor. Baylor utilizes a ton of guards and they like to keep it small and fast. The good news for Texas Tech is that is they have some elite guards as well, so this should be a good matchup to watch. The Red Raiders are 8-6 against the spread this year.
Why Baylor Could Cover The Spread
Baylor should cover this spread, but it won't come easy. Baylor knows that this team is coming off a huge win without their two best players. They can't let it become a similar contest or else Baylor won't cover. We've seen Baylor win games by a lot of points but a majority of their wins lately come by just 10-12 points. The good news is that they are dominant at home, averaging 88 points per game and winning their last nine in a row.
Baylor is 9-5-1 against the spread this year. That is good enough to consider taking here even though Texas Tech had proven to keep things interesting. I think Baylor will play better in this game knowing that they won't be facing two elite offensive threats. The Baylor defense forces turnovers at a high rate, good for ninth in the NCAA at 26.4%. That should be what gets the job done tonight, forcing Texas Tech to make mistakes.
Final Texas Tech-Baylor Prediction & Pick
This isn't easy because of Texas Tech's last game, but I am going to take Baylor to cover this spread. I think they will take advantage of the lack of Texas Tech power and hold on to win by at least 13.
Final Texas Tech-Baylor Prediction & Pick: Baylor -12 (-110)
Follow Us
Subscribe