Cincinnati Bearcats vs Temple Owls Betting Preview
It’s an American Athletic Conference matchup on Thursday night as the Cincinnati Bearcats (3-7, 1-4 AAC) travel to Philadelphia to take on the Temple Owls (4-5, 3-5) inside the Liacouras Center. Tipoff is set for 7 pm ET on ESPN2.
This will be the one and only meeting between the two schools during the regular season after their first matchup on Jan. 20 was postponed due to positive COVID-19 cases and the ensuing contact tracing of student-athletes at Cincinnati.
For those betting online on this contest, our Cincinnati Bearcats vs Temple Owls betting preview has Cincinnati is a 1.5-point favorite, with the over/under set at 139½ in our NCAAB odds.
Lengthy Layoff
The Temple game was one of four postponements on the Bearcats’ schedule during the program’s pause, so Thursday’s tilt will be their first game action since Jan. 10. After making some college basketball news by starting the year 2-1, Cincinnati dropped six of its next seven, including a six-point loss to Wichita State in their most recent outing.
The Bearcats were scheduled to face the Shockers again 17 days later. However, the rematch was part of the four postponed affairs and is currently not being rescheduled.
Cincinnati currently sits in 10th place in the AAC, one of just two teams in the American with a single conference victory. The Bearcats are 2-8 ATS this year and just 1-4 to the number on the road, winning outright at SMU as 5.5-point underdogs on Jan. 7.
Senior guard Keith Williams leads the team in scoring with 15.0 points per game, notching double figures in every game except two.
Temple Tuff
Thursday will mark the fourth straight home game for the Owls, though Temple is just 3-3 on its home floor. The Owls have also dealt with postponements. But, the postponements more sporadically than their opponent, with COVID-19 throwing a monkey wrench in their schedule on Dec. 12, Jan. 2, Jan. 20 and last Wednesday.
Last time out, the Owls fell to Tulane on Sunday, the first game the team played since the death of Hall of Fame coach John Chaney. Temple has only been able to string together back-to-back wins once this year. The defeated UCF and the Green Wave on Jan. 14 and 16.
Freshman Damian Dunn combined to score 40 points in those two victories. The guard leads the team in scoring with 14.1 points per game.
Dunn has gotten some help recently with Butler transfer Khalif Battle joining the fray. The sophomore debuted after missing the first part of the season with a hamstring injury and is now the team’s second-leading scorer.
The Owls are 5-3-1 ATS this year and 3-2-1 at home. Their best stretch when it comes to the number came between Dec. 30 and Jan. 16, when they were 3-0-1 ATS, though they were just 2-2 straight-up in those four games.
Free Cincinnati Bearcats vs Temple Owls Betting Pick
It will be interesting to see how often Williams and Dunn match up in this one. Let’s see if Williams is able to use his experience against the rookie Dunn. Last year, Cincinnati swept the season series but won by a combined eight points in two closely-contested games.
In fact, Temple hasn’t beaten Cincinnati since the 2015-16 season, when it won both meetings by a combined nine points, one of which was decided in double overtime. If you take out a 33-point blowout in January 2018, the average margin of victory in the eight meetings since 2015 is just 4.5 points.
The X-factor, as we’ve seen quite a bit this season, is how a team coming off a long layoff responds to live action. The rest vs rust factor is real.
Playing a conference opponent should help the Bearcats in this scenario. They’ll at least be familiar with the team on the other bench. However, they haven’t been able to overcome their struggles on the road and will fall again away from their home court.
When making your college basketball picks, take the points and bet on the Owls at -1.5.
