College Basketball Odds - West Virginia at TCU Game Preview

The TCU Horned Frogs ripped through their non-conference schedule to start the season. TCU reeled off 12 straight wins, crushing almost every opponent its path before its first Big 12 game. That’s when things started to change. TCU has not been able to get any sort of traction against conference foes. The Horned Frogs have lost four of their six conference games and their two wins have come against teams with losing records. They are in desperate need of a win when the West Virginia Mountaineers come to town.

This war on the floor will go down Monday, January 22, 2018, at 9 p.m. ET at Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The game will be televised live on ESPN. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Monday schedule.

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West Virginia has had a rough go of it in recent weeks. Just last week, the Mountaineers were seen as the team most likely to end Kansas’ reign atop the Big 12. With Esa Ahmad coming back from a suspension, things looked bright for WVU. However, the Mountaineers have now lost two in a row and barely beat Baylor the week before that.

The offense has underperformed in recent weeks, leading to a winning streak for the under in WVU games. The under has now cashed in five straight and eight of the last ten overall.

Every single game that TCU has played against a conference opponent has gone over this season. Over has cashed in six straight Horned Frogs games, giving bettors a nice consistent cash since the new year. The over is 13-4 overall in TCU games and 8-3 in home games.

The Horned Frogs are 3-3 ATS in Big 12 play, but would have covered if you teased them in every conference game. Their biggest loss in regulation was by four points, and their last two SU losses came in overtime.

Key Injury

Jamie Dixon got bad news late Thursday night when it was announced that Jaylen Fisher will miss the rest of the season after tearing a meniscus in his knee. Fisher was one of the team’s main contributors and not having him for the rest of the year is going to be huge. He was one of the team’s top distributors, dishing out 5.4 assists per game and was an excellent shooter too.

It’s always tough when you suffer a season-ending injury, but the knife is twisted a little bit more when you find out that the injury came in practice. Fisher was a very efficient shooter, hitting better than 50 percent from the floor and almost 44 percent from beyond the arc.

Without him, the team will turn to Alex Robinson and Shawn Olden. Neither one will be able to match Fisher’s shooting touch, but at least Robinson has proven himself to be a gifted distributor. That will come in handy down the stretch.

Player to Watch

West Virginia won 15 straight games before Esa Ahmad returned to the lineup, but has now lost its last two. Ahmad isn’t to blame for the losses of course, it’s just a bit of bad luck.

Ahmad has provided the scoring spark for a WVU team that was having a hard time creating effective possessions on the offensive end. He is hitting 55 percent from the floor and has been a solid free throw shooter since his return. Ahmad opens up the court for the rest of the Mountaineers, making this offense much more productive.

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Losing one of your primary guards right before playing West Virginia is brutal. The Mountaineers are going to press relentlessly and will force mistakes out of Robinson. That will lead to a comfortable road win for WVU.

College Basketball Odds: West Virginia 79, TCU 72

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