Don’t look now, but the Oklahoma Sooners might be set to upset the apple cart in the Big 12. Kansas has won at least a share of the regular season title in every year since 2005, but the Sooners are looking like the team to beat in the conference this season. Superstar freshman Trae Young has led a resurgence in Norman, and Oklahoma has already won more games than it did all of last season. The Sooners will be taking on another one of the conference contenders on Saturday when they square off against the West Virginia Mountaineers.
This war on the floor will go down Saturday, January 6, 2018, at 7:15 p.m. ET at WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, West Virginia. The game will be televised live on ESPN2. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Saturday schedule.
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The Sooners have been the most consistent offense in the country with Young at the helm. They have scored at least 82 points in every game this season, and that has led to the over cashing at a ridiculous rate. The over is 11-1 in Oklahoma games this season and has cashed in each of the last six. Oklahoma has also covered four in a row, including two outright wins as an underdog.
West Virginia is one of the hottest teams in the country. The Mountaineers have lost 13 straight after opening the season with a loss to Texas A&M and have defeated every team by at least six points. They have some nice wins over Virginia, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State, but have been marginal against the number. WVU is 5-5 ATS on the year.
Player to Watch
It sounds like a broken record at this point, but if you’re going to talk about Oklahoma you have to talk about Young. He is the frontrunner for the Naismith Trophy at this point and has been phenomenal through the first half of the season.
No player has meant more to his team than Young. He has sparked in a renaissance in Norman with his heady play and is leading the nation in both points and assists.
Young hasn’t been inefficient either. He is hitting 47.1 percent of his field goals and more than 40 percent of his threes through the midway point of the season. He has tallied at least 25 points and 10 assists in each of his past five games and has had no problem adapting to the speed of the college game.
If you want to nitpick, you can point to his high amount of turnovers each game. However, when you consider his usage rate and how much he holds the ball, those numbers are well less than the average.
Key Stat
West Virginia is one of the best teams in the nation at forcing turnovers. The Mountaineers are forcing over 20 turnovers per game this season, and they currently rank second in the NCAA in this category.
This is a team that typically eats up young guards. West Virginia is third in the country in steals, and no player is better in that department than Jevon Carter. Carter leads the nation with 3.7 steals per game and will likely pick up Young for most of the game.
Free College Basketball ATS Picks
Oklahoma is catching a bit of a break in this one. It was recently announced that West Virginia’s second-best player Esa Ahmad was cleared to return to the team this week. However, he will not officially rejoin the team in game action until next Saturday’s tilt against Texas Tech.
This should be a great test for Young. West Virginia is going to throw everything it can at him and try to force him to make mistakes. If he can handle the pressure, he should dominate. However, I think he is going to struggle enough for West Virginia to pull out the win.
College Basketball Odds: West Virginia 86, Oklahoma 82
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