TCU vs. Kansas NCAA Basketball Betting Analysis and Free Pick (Archive)
Rematches don’t come any quicker this time of year than what the TCU Horned Frogs and Kansas Jayhawks are giving us on Thursday’s NCAA basketball odds board.
TCU Horned Frogs vs. Kansas Jayhawks
Thursday, March 3, 2022 – 8:00 PM EST at Allen Fieldhouse
Kansas and TCU were originally scheduled to play their Big 12 Conference openers at Allen Fieldhouse on January 1st, but that New Year’s Day matchup was called off due to the flu bug running through the Horned Frogs program. It was eventually rescheduled for Thursday night, just two days after the Jayhawks were in Ft. Worth where TCU pulled off an upset.
Tuesday’s result temporarily knocked Kansas a half-game behind the Baylor Bears at the top of the Big 12 ranks, with Texas Tech just a half-game behind the Jayhawks. Texas is inked into the fourth slot for next week’s conference tournament, and TCU is currently all alone in fifth with an 8-8 record in conference play.
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‘Under’ Has Cashed Six of Last Nine Meetings
A capacity crowd at The Phog in Lawrence will be on hand for this college basketball matchup, and the betting odds are firmly behind Kansas. After opening -11½, the Jayhawks are going off a point lower on most boards and scoreboard bettors are looking at a total that is running 143½-144.
Three minutes into the second half on Tuesday, TCU was clinging to a 40-39 lead over Kansas in what was a tightly-played, back-&-forth game to that point. The Horned Frogs, 6½-point underdogs on their home floor, would never lose that advantage after that while cruising to a 74-64 final that should all but guarantee an invite to the NCAA Men’s Tournament.
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Kansas head coach Bill Self pointed to the Horned Frogs as being the “more aggressive team,” and that showed up in the rebounding column where TCU had a 47-35 advantage, 19 of those boards in the offensive end. Mike Miles paced the Horned Frogs with 19 points while dishing six assists, while Jalen Wilson and Ochai Agbaji contributed 13 each for the Jayhawks.
Texas Christian’s triumph ended a string of 8-straight wins in the series for the Jayhawks, who have won 18 of the 21 matchups as Big 12 foes and hold a 22-10 all-time lead in the rivalry. 6½-point underdogs on their home floor. It was the third time in the last four meetings for the Horned Frogs to cover the numbers at the top-rated sportsbooks, with six of the last nine staying ‘under.’
Frogs Beat Spread Last Four Times Out
More than a few people questioned Jamie Dixon’s sanity when he left Pitt to take the TCU job in 2016. It’s Dixon who is having the last laugh now after rebuilding the program at his alma mater in Ft. Worth, and it’s the Horned Frogs who are defying preseason projections when they ranked near the bottom of the Big 12 on the NCAA basketball futures.
Texas Christian had never won consecutive games over top 25 teams before this week, and now the Horned Frogs have consecutive wins over top 10 squads after beating then-No. 9 Texas Tech last Saturday and No. 6 Kansas on Tuesday. That pair of dubyas also left TCU 4-3 against ranked teams this season and poised for just their second NCAA Tournament appearance since Dixon wore a Horned Frogs jersey in the late-1980s.
KU 3-1 ATS Last Four at Home
Even with all of the chaos last Saturday when Kansas fell 80-70 on the road to Baylor as a 3-point underdog at BetOnline and the upset loss to the Horned Frogs on Tuesday, the Jayhawks haven’t lost any ground in the projected seedings for March Madness. Joe Lunardi still has Self’s squad as a 1-seed in his latest rankings, with others listing the Jayhawks as a No. 2.
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The mini 2-game skid the Jayhawks are on is the first time this season they have dropped back-to-back games and only the second time that has happened since the 2018-19 campaign. Kansas is still putting points on the scoreboard at a 79.1 PPG clip, good enough for 15th in the country, and the Jayhawks’ 47.8% field goal rate ranks just outside the nation’s top 10.
Turning things around from a 10-point loss to at least an 11-point win in a matter of 48 hours is asking a lot, even a team like Kansas that will be playing in front of a charged-up home crowd. And yet, that’s exactly where my college basketball pick is going as the Jayhawks rock this double-digit chalk for some quick revenge.
NCAAB Pick: Kansas -10½ (-105) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
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