College Hoops Best Bet (1/14/25)
Author: Dylan Lieck | January 14, 2025 | 5:55 P.M. CST
College Basketball Season Record: 18-5
Best Bet Tonight:
Baylor Bears @ Arizona Wildcats OVER 147 (-110)
Summary: This game features two teams trending up in the Big 12. Arizona has had a rollercoaster year so far in Tommy Lloyd’s 4th season. The Wildcats had their worst start since Lloyd took over this program back in 2021, going 4-5 through their first 9 games. This included losses to two teams in the Cat’s new conference (Big 12). Fortunately for Arizona, those games came in a tournament early in the season, thus neither loss counted towards conference play. Since Big 12 play officially tipped off, Arizona is a perfect 4-0, and they’ve now won 6 consecutive games overall. It feels like they’ve steadied the ship at last. Baylor had a similar start, although they did not get in as big of a hole as Arizona did. The Bears were 5-3 through their first 8 games. However, they’ve won 6 of their last 7 games, with their lone loss coming on the road against the #3 ranked Iowa State Cyclones.
Thus both teams come in playing good basketball, and especially playing good on the offensive end. Both teams come in ranked in the top 20 in Offensive Efficiency (Baylor 15th, Arizona 17th). Additionally, both come in ranked outside the top 25 in the country in Defensive Efficiency. Now neither team is BAD defensively, but they are certainly not elite (Baylor 26th, Arizona 40th). So we have two teams coming in playing good basketball, both of which are very talented on the offensive end of the floor, but have struggled to fully put it together on the defensive end.
When you look at the pace of play Baylor likes to slow it down much more than Arizona. The Bears play at a a pace in the bottom 1/3rd of the country, while Arizona plays at a very fast pace (56th in country in adjusted tempo). Arizona especially likes to push the pace at home. In fact, the last 4 home games the Wildcats have played, the games have averaged 164.2 points, which is far beyond the number we need tonight (147). Although Baylor does like to play at a slow pace on both sides, they are much more likely to morph to their opponents’ tempo than Arizona is, especially on the road. I believe the Bears are going to run with the Wildcats tonight and push the tempo. They certainly have the talent & athletes to do so with VJ Edgecombe and Jeremy Roach. I see this as a very up tempo game and possibly turning into a shootout with the two sides trading buckets late.
Let’s Roll with the OVER tonight. It’s come down a touch, which is weird to me. I would think it has to do with Baylor’s pace of play, but that stat is skewed based on opponents and location of play. Take the best of the number, but 147 is still out there.
Official Pick: Baylor @ Arizona OVER 147 (-110)
Play Rating: 2-Stars
