CBB Texas vs Ohio State Betting Preview
Ball is back (almost)!
College Basketball begins next week on November 4th and fans are treated to a late-night double-header: Ohio State vs Texas at 10:00 EST and Gonzaga vs Baylor at 11:30 EST. For today, I’m going to be focused exclusively on the former.
Ohio State vs Texas, Nov. 4th, 10:00 EST
Texas was ranked the 19th best team in the preseason coming off of an impressive 2023-2024 campaign. Unfortunately for Longhorn fans, some of their best players in 2024 are not returning for this season. Dylan Disu and Max Abmas, the best scorers last season, graduated and are now in the NBA. Only one player was selected to a Pre-Season All SEC team as transfer G Tramon Mark from Arkansas was chosen to the 3rd team.
On the other hand, unranked Ohio St is coming into this matchup as only a 2.5 point underdog, mostly due to their utilization of the transfer portal this offseason. Former five-star recruit Sean Stewart transferred from Duke to OSU due to playing limited minutes his freshman season. Additionally, former five-star center Aaron Bradshaw entered the transfer portal after a freshman season at Kentucky marked by injury and disappointment. Now in Columbus, both of these former high-school standouts will receive a significant boost in minutes. Despite being inexperienced, the front court duo of Stewart and Bradshaw has the potential to be electric and I am banking on them to dominate Texas down low.
The early lines for the games are Texas -2.5 with the o/u set at 146.5. All things considered, this is a pretty standard line for Vegas. It is a neutral site game so they gave the slight edge to the safer, more established program while placing the total at a reasonable, average CBB number. While it is too early to tell where most of the public money on the game is going to be, it’s safe to assume that Texas (aided by that number 19 next to their name) will be the popular play. However, I am willing to take the risk on OSU because of the sheer talent and potential in their front court compared to the Longhorns. Additionally, this Texas team is going to miss the scoring of Disu and Abmas way more than people think. For those reasons, my first official CBB play of the season will be Ohio State ML at +125.
Pick: Ohio State +2.5 (-110) & Ohio State ML (+125)