The UCF Knights take on the Temple Owls. Check out our college basketball odds series for our UCF Temple prediction and pick. Find out how to watch UCF Temple.
The UCF Knights and Temple Owls will not play in the NCAA Tournament unless they win the AAC Tournament. Both teams have had rocky seasons with occasional good moments but nothing near the level of consistency needed to finish in the top tier of the AAC or make a serious run at an NCAA berth. The AAC is a two-team league in terms of NCAA Tournament bid representation. Houston will be a top-two seed and should get a No. 1 seed if it beats Wichita State and then wins the AAC Tournament. It could probably lose at Memphis but still get a 1 seed if it wins all of its other games. Memphis is the other AAC team in line to get an NCAA bid, though the Tigers do want to make sure to beat SMU before they play Houston.
UCF played Houston tough in two meetings this season. The Knights have to lament the fact that they couldn't bring a similar level of performance against the rest of the AAC. They lost at home to Cincinnati and South Florida, the kinds of losses the Knights simply could not afford in their attempt to get an NCAA berth. UCF was swept by South Florida this season, and it also lost to Tulane in addition to Houston and Memphis.
Temple has a slightly better conference record than UCF, but the Owls are barely above .500, having eaten a number of bad losses in nonconference play, such as Wagner, Penn, and Maryland-Eastern Shore. Both teams could not take care of business in games they absolutely had to win.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the UCF-Temple College Basketball odds.
College Basketball Odds: UCF-Temple Odds
UCF Knights: +1.5 (-118)
Temple Owls: -1.5 (-104)
Over: 133.5 (-115)
Under: 133.5 (-105)
How To Watch UCF vs. Temple
TV: ESPNU
Stream: ESPN+
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET, 4:00 p.m. PT
*Watch UCF-Temple LIVE with fuboTV (Click for free trial)*
Why UCF Could Cover the Spread
The Temple Owls are a strange team. They won at Houston and showed they could play at a high level, but they lost to Wichita State as a result of a huge second-half run they allowed to the Shockers. A team which lost to Wagner was able to beat Houston, a No. 1 seed, on the road. What does that tell you about Temple? The Owls play to the level of their competition instead of being relentlessly consistent and generally reliable. You don't want to bet on that kind of team. Temple has been all over the place this season. The Owls can and do produce some great 10- or 12-minute periods of play but very rarely maintain a high level of form over all 40 minutes of a game. UCF just crushed Tulsa this past Sunday in an easy road win. The Knights looked like a mature team in that road game and can certainly carry that level of form into this contest in Philadelphia.
Why Temple Could Cover the Spread
This spread is very small. Temple won on the road at UCF earlier this season. If the Owls could win at UCF, they can win in Philadelphia, and they can do so by a large margin far beyond two points. It's a little surprising this game is being treated as something very close to a coin flip, even though the AAC is a parity-filled and inconsistent league.
Final UCF-Temple Prediction & Pick
You should stay away from this game, since neither team is reliable. The AAC as a whole is unreliable with the exceptions of Houston (great) and Tulsa (awful).
Final UCF-Temple Prediction & Pick: Temple -1.5
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