Kansas State @ Kansas College Basketball Pick

Kansas State @ Kansas Pick

Basketball Betting Game Trends

NCAA Basketball Pick – February 11th

The Kansas Jayhawks have dropped three games in a row and really need to get back on track in NCAA basketball betting action. They’ll take on the Kansas State Wildcats in a Sunflower State showdown on Monday night on ESPN.

This is a huge opportunity for Kansas State to kick an arch rival while it is down. The Cats have won four games in a row, and they have three of their next four at home after this one, and this is a great chance to move all the way up in the bracket to perhaps even one of the top three lines. In a Saturday win over the Iowa State Cyclones, G Rodney McGruder scored 22 points, and he was one of the four Cats that logged double digits in scoring. He’s the team’s leading scorer at 15.0 points per game this year, though he is the only man that is averaging double digits in scoring. G Angel Rodriguez does a nice job running the point for this team, and he is just under the double digit threshold at 9.9 points per game. The key is going to be in the paint, where there isn’t a man on the whole team that averages more than 5.5 rebounds per game.

Head Coach Bill Self doesn’t suffer three-game skids all that often, but that’s what has happened here to the Jayhawks in games that they really shouldn’t have been losing. The team was easily favored in all three games, and it is going to be a huge chalk once again in this one. The defense is what really has to get back to its ways for KU if it wants to think about getting back on the No. 1 line for the NCAA Tournament. Teams are only shooting 36.0 percent from the field against the Jayhawks for the year, and a lot of that is thanks to the play of C Jeff Withey in the paint. Withey not only blocks 4.0 shots per game, but his presence alone alters a ton of other shots as well. The scoring has lacked as well, as 55 and 66 points in back to back road games just doesn’t cut it. Then again, this is a team that has struggled against its best foes to put points on the board all year long, but it wasn’t until recently that that really started to hurt the team.

Prediction:

Here’s the good news: The oddsmakers have really punished the Jayhawks here. They were 3.5 point favorites on the road in Manhattan just a few weeks ago, and had the game been played in Lawrence the very next day, they would have been favored by a dozen in all likelihood. That’s why we think that laying nine isn’t a bad idea with a team that is destined to get back to the basics of basketball at some point to get back in the win column in a big time way. Kansas 69 – Kansas State 56