Cincinnati Bearcats vs. Houston Cougars March 1 NCAA Basketball Betting Preview & Picks

The Cincinnati Bearcats are traveling to Houston to take on the No. 14 Cougars in an American Athletic Conference matchup on Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ET. Cincinnati is on a three-game skid including a loss this past weekend on a buzzer-beater against South Florida. Houston is riding a nice four-game win streak and will look to continue this hot streak into March.

Houston finds themselves at the top of the conference at 13-2 in the conference and 24-4 overall. The season for the Bearcats has been very different. They sit seventh in the American with a conference record of 7-9 and an overall record of 17-12. The only way for Cincinnati to make it into the NCAA tournament is winning the American Athletic Conference tournament in a couple weeks.

Let’s look ahead at this Tuesday night matchups between the Bearcats and the Cougars.

Expected Odds

The Cougars are a 15 point favorite over these struggling Bearcats at home. I will take Houston to win this game with the spread because it didn’t go too well for the Bearcats in Cincinnati in their first meeting of the season.

Houston came into Cincinnati and demolished them by a score of 80-58. Fabian White Jr. led the Cougars with 22 points and nine rebounds. David DeJulius has a career-high of 25 points in this contest, but the rest of the Bearcats couldn’t provide the additional supporting help to keep them in the game.

Cincinnati is averaging 70.2 points and giving up 65.7 points per game this season. For Houston, they are scoring 76.3 and giving up 49 points per game. With these figures, and the over/under is 135, I would take the under since either team could go cold in what has been a disruptive week for college basketball.

Key Players to Watch

The success of the Bearcats heavily sits on the shoulders of the guard duo of David DeJulius and Jeremiah Davenport. They are averaging 14.5 and 13.6 points per game, respectively. If they don’t score at least that much, the Bearcats will not win this game or any game for that matter. 

If it is any sign of how well the Bearcats have played this year, Jeremiah Davenport is leading the team in rebounds with 5.5 rebounds per game.

For the Cougars, Marcus Sasser is their star who is averaging 17.7 points per game. They have six other players that are averaging at least nine points per game compared to the Bearcats who have a total of three players over this point total.

Josh Carlton will provide some much-needed size against a small Bearcats team. If the Bearcats don’t shoot well, Carlton will clean up the boards and can give the Cougars more opportunities on the offensive end. Carlton and the other bigs for Houston will be the x-factor in winning and covering the spread.

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