The Cincinnati Bearcats will be looking for their first quality win of the season when they face the Iowa State Cyclones in Ames on Thursday night. Cincinnati has made the NCAA Tournament in six straight seasons under head coach Mick Cronin he has the Bearcats off to a solid start again. Meanwhile, Iowa State may have lost a ton of talent from last year’s squad, but still remains competitive and showed what it is capable of when it blew out Miami last week.
Don’t miss the hardwood action from the James H. Hilton Coliseum at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 1, 2016. Catch every moment of the game live on ESPN. We will have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Thursday schedule.
College Basketball Odds at BookMaker.eu
Cincinnati is 5-1 SU and 3-2 ATS on the year, with the one loss coming as a two-point favorite against Rhode Island. Four of the Bearcats’ five games with totals have finished under the number.
Iowa State is 5-1 SU and 3-1 ATS this season and fell three points short of being 6-0 with two quality wins after losing to Gonzaga a few days ago. The under has cashed in each of the last three Cyclones games.
Last Year’s Meeting
These two sides met last year in Cincinnati in a close, back and forth affair. Georges Niang was the difference maker for Iowa State, like he was for much of last season, collecting 24 points and 10 rebounds in a two-point victory.
Iowa State was ahead for much of the game, but Cincinnati stormed back late and almost took the game away from the Cyclones. With 11 seconds to play, the Bearcats were up one, but Abdel Nader came through with a clutch three that put the Cyclones up by two. Cincinnati hurried the ball down the court and had three decent looks to get the win, but missed all three in the loss.
When the team’s meet this season, Iowa State will be without both Niang and Nader and it will be Cincinnati that has the more experienced line-up.
Key Stat
Iowa State was one of the highest scoring teams in college basketball last season and while it looks like the Cyclones will again be a high-scoring team at first glance, that’s not the case. The Cyclones may be 13th in the country with 88.8 PPG, but those gaudy numbers come as the result of two games against bad teams.
Iowa State lit up The Citadel for 130 points and Savannah State for 113 when they faced these teams early on in the season and those offensive explosions have overstated how good the Cyclones’ offense really is. Against better competition, the Cyclones have had a lot more difficulty scoring, failing to score more than 73 points against any of the other four opponents on their schedule.
Free College Basketball ATS Picks
The Bearcats are somewhat untested this season. The one team expected to make the NCAA Tournament that they have played was Rhode Island, and the Rams were able to storm back in the second half to knock them off. They have beaten everyone else by double digits, but none of those teams look to be any good.
Where Cincinnati is going to have real trouble with Iowa State is on the glass. The Bearcats were beaten by the Rams on the boards pretty handily and that was one of the pivotal factors that turned the tide in favor of Rhode Island. Iowa State is even better at collecting rebounds, grabbing the third-most in the country through six games. The Cyclones have guards that can rebound at a high level and that’s a big advantage.
The Cyclones might still be coming together as a team, but should be able to get the job done against the Bearcats thanks to a major rebounding advantage and solid perimeter defending.
College Basketball Odds: Iowa State 77, Cincinnati 70
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