NCAAB Iowa St @ Iowa
Things will be heating up in the Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City for the inter-state rivalry that exists between the Iowa State Cyclones (6-2 SU, 4-3 ATS) and the Iowa Hawkeyes (8-2 SU, 5-1 ATS) in NCAA college basketball sports betting action that is scheduled to tip off at 8 PM ET.
BetUS Sportsbook NCAA Basketball Betting Odds: IOWA -8
Here are some of the NCAA basketball sports betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* ISU has won six of its last eight games SU
* ISU has lost 11 of its last 12 road games SU
* ISU has played nine of its last 13 road games OVER the total
* IOWA has won eight of its last 10 games SU
* IOWA has won its last five home games SU
Also…
* ISU has covered four of the last five meetings
* Four of the last six meetings have gone UNDER the total
* IOWA has won four of the last five meetings SU as the home team
Todd Lickliter, the second-year coach at Iowa, has been trying hard to build a program in the image of that which he left at Butler University. But this is a process so he has been loading up his ballclub with youth. He starts three freshmen, two of which are setting the pace for the Hawkeyes in the scoring department – Anthony Tucker (13.1 ppg) and Matt Gatens (11.1 ppg). In the early going, Iowa has eked out a two-point win over Kansas State (trying to adjust to being without Michael Beasley) and has lost to West Virginia and Boston College.
One of the problems for Lickliter is that he doesn’t have a lot of size to work with and therefore must operate as a perimeter-oriented team. Iowa State might be able to exploit that kind of thing. Their go-to guy thus far, as coach Greg McDermott had hoped after the transfer of Wesley Johnson, is Craig Brackins, a 6’10” sophomore out of Palmdale, CA. Brackins, who erupted for 32 points against another in-state rival, Northern Iowa, leads the team with 17 points a game, and about half the time he is joined on the front line by freshman Jamie Vanderbeken, who is averaging 1.4 blocks.
What is giving Iowa State something of a new dimension is the insertion of Lucca Staiger into the lineup. Staiger, a 6’5″ guard who had knee surgery in October, had previously played with a German club team and therefore was ruled ineligible by the NCAA last year. McDermott has made him a starter, and he responded with 14 points against Oregon State and 24 against Drake, a game where he sank eight of 11 three-point shots. He gives ISU the inside-outside game that will certainly stretch the Iowa defensive scheme, perhaps too far.
Iowa State has covered four of the last five meetings in this rivalry. They have the horses to win their second road game in 13 tries, but we figure they can at least cover this number, as they are the eight-point underdog in the BetUS NCAA college basketball sports betting odds.
