Rice vs. Central Florida – Take the Over

COLLEGE BASKETBALL BETTING – Game Match-up 2/25

Rice Owls vs. Central Florida Knights 7:00 ET

As March Madness draws nearer, teams in Conference USA are jockeying for position in the quest to knock off the Memphis Tigers as the top dogs in the conference. In Wednesday night’s sports betting affair, the Rice Owls (8-18, 10-11-1 ATS) head to the Sunshine State to do battle with the Central Florida Knights (16-10, 14-6 ATS). The Knights currently sit sixth in C-USA at 6-6, but they’ve been fantastic against the basketball betting line, going 10-2 ATS. Rice has struggled all year, going just 3-9 in conference play so far (9th), but it does sport a .500 ATS record against C-USA foes.

The Knights have been tabbed as 12-point favorites in tonight’s showdown, while the ‘total’ has been set at 139.5.

The Owls haven’t had much luck winning games lately, as they’ve lost three straight games SU and eight out of ten overall. Their sports bettors won’t mind though, as Rice has gone 5-1 ATS in its L/6 games. In their last outing on Saturday, a lousy SMU team got the better of the Owls on the scoreboard with a 69-66 victory. They did however manage to stick in front of the 5.5-point spread by a whisker.

It was an unusually solid outing for a defense which has struggled is C-USA play this year. The Owls will only go as far as G Rodney Foster takes them. He leads the team in points per game (12.0), assists per game (4.3), and steals per game (1.1), and has scored in double digits in nine straight games. The biggest question for the Rice defense is who is going to body with Knights F Jermaine Taylor, who is third in the nation in scoring.

Taylor has been on fire of late for UCF. His scoring average is up to a whopping 25.3 points per game after pouring in 35 against Houston on Saturday night. Though the 77-72 decision went against the Knights, it was the third straight spread which they covered. Hardly anyone has figured out how to win at UCF Arena this year, as the Knights are an impressive 12-2 SU and 8-2 ATS in front of the hometown faithful. One of those SU losses came with PG AJ Rompza in the lineup, and the other was a forgivable defeat at the hands of Memphis. Rompza’s numbers aren’t overwhelming (5.0 points and 5.0 assists per game), but he is the key distributor of the basketball to keep Taylor involved in the offense.

Back on January 17th, the Knights took out the Owls 77-52 as slender two-point favorites. With the revenge factor in mind, it’s hard to lay 12 points even though the Knights have been a fantastic home squad. The better play in this game is the ‘over’. Seven of UCF’s nine lined home games have produced winners for ‘over’ bettors, and the team has averaged 86.2 points per game at home this year with Rompza in the lineup. Rice has averaged 73.5 points per game in its L/6 games, and should it reach just 65 in this one, the ‘total’ should be a cinch.

Rose’s Recommendation: 4* Over 140
(Grading Scale = 1*-5*)