WVU Looks To Knock Off Another Top-3 Seed

West Virginia just upset second-seeded Ohio State, and now they look to follow that up with an upset of third-seeded Kansas. But the Mountaineers have lost seven straight at Kansas and covered the spread once in their last six meetings, so can bettors trust them to hang around on Saturday?

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

Kansas rates highly in both scoring and scoring defense and do not lose very often at home, especially against West Virginia, so they opened as 9.5-point home favorites over 14th-seeded WVU. The total opened at 141 points, which seems high considering both teams have played to the UNDER a lot recently and in four of their last six matchups.

West Virginia News & Notes

The Mountaineers enter conference season with an 11-1 record, and are coming off their biggest win of the season. They rallied from a six-point halftime deficit to defeat the second-ranked Ohio State 67-59 on Sunday.

Freshman guard Miles McBride led the team with 21 points off the bench, which was needed as no West Virginia starter finished in double figures. While they normally have three players averaging at least 10 points per game, including star freshman Oscar Tshiebwe, the Mountaineers prefer low-scoring games, as the total has gone UNDER in nine of their 12 games this season.

The victory bumped West Virginia up to 14th in the national rankings, but they will be tested yet again against third-seeded Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Mountaineers have lost seven straight games.

Kansas News & Notes

Kansas may have two losses already on the season, but looking at the team’s rankings in key metrics — and who their two losses came against — and it’s not hard to see that they are one of the country’s top programs yet again.

The Jayhawks lost their first game of the year to fourth-seeded Duke and then lost two weeks ago at 18th-seed Villanova… with both defeats coming by a combined three points. Kansas is 50th in the nation in allowing 62.3 points per game, 21st offensively at 81.1 points per game, and 16th in the country in assists.

Devon Dotson leads the team with 18.8 points and 4.6 assists per game, and may need to bring a little extra on Saturday as fellow guard Marcus Garrett is questionable with an ankle injury. Either way, expect Kansas to be ready to defend their home court — where they’ve won 20 straight games.

Betting Pick: UNDER 141

WVU has played to the UNDER in five straight games, while Kansas has seen the total go UNDER in eight of their 12 games this season. In the first conference game of the season, I’m expecting a hard-nosed, defensive game.