The Wichita State Shockers will get their welcome to the AAC this Saturday. Wichita State joined the conference in order to try to give the program a boost and take it to the next level. The Shockers are the overwhelming favorites to win the conference, but this is definitely a step up from the Missouri Valley. They are hungry to get off on the right foot and will look to establish themselves when they take on the Connecticut Huskies this week.
This war on the floor will go down Saturday, December 30, 2017, at 12 p.m. ET at the XL Center in Storrs, Connecticut. The game will be televised live on CBS. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Saturday schedule.
Opening College Basketball Odds at BookMaker.eu
The Shockers have some nice wins so far this season, but lost to their two toughest opponents. Wichita State was unable to get past Notre Dame and Oklahoma, despite being favored in both games. Still, this team continues to get a lot of love from the oddsmakers. They have been favored in every game this season, although the Shockers are just 4-6 ATS and struggled with both Arkansas State and Florida Gulf Coast.
Connecticut has been one of the worst teams to bet on this season. The Huskies are just 7-5 SU and 2-7 ATS. They did play Arizona tough before the Christmas Break, but got hammered by Auburn two weeks later. The defense has not been playing well, leading to five of their last seven games finishing over the total.
Matchup to Watch
Wichita State is an extremely efficient team and Connecticut is going to have a hard time shutting down this offense. As a whole, the Shockers are hitting 48.8 percent of their shots from the floor this season. Everyone in the rotation is hitting at least 40 percent from the field, and the three leading scorers have been particularly great. Landry Shamet, Darral Willis Jr., and Shaquille Morris are all hitting at least 51 percent from the floor. Shamet and Willis have been great from three too, hitting at least 43 percent of their threes.
The Huskies have not been good defensively this season. They are in the middle of the pack in terms of shooting defense and have allowed teams to fire away from downtown. Teams are hitting nine three-pointers per game against this team on average, and that was a big part of why Auburn blew them out.
Key Stat
For a major program, Connecticut has been pretty poor on the offensive end. The Huskies are hitting just 40.1 percent of their field goals this season and none of the starters are hitting better than 42.7 percent from the floor. Those numbers are absurdly poor and show that this team has not been able to create good shots.
The biggest reason for this is that the team doesn’t have good ball distribution. The guards play a lot of isolation and try to make something happen rather than rotate the ball around in order to get the best shot. Connecticut is averaging just 9.3 assists per game on the year, a number that is in the bottom ten in the nation.
That should make things easy for Wichita State on the defensive end. The Shockers are great at locking shooters up and shutting down shooters.
Free College Basketball ATS Picks
This one is going to be ugly. The two ways to beat Wichita State are with size or great ball distribution from the guards, and Connecticut has neither. Wichita State is going to play at a tempo that Connecticut is uncomfortable with, and will be able to force bad shots out of the Huskies time and time again. Don’t be surprised if Wichita State wins this by 20 or more.
College Basketball Odds: Wichita State 86, Connecticut 65
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