NCAAB Sports Betting Ole Miss vs Louisville
The Ole Miss Rebels (7-3 SU, 3-5 ATS) were hoping to come into their game in the SEC/Big East Invitational under better circumstances, but their coach is under a cloud of controversy as they go up against the Louisville Cardinals (6-1 SU, 4-3 ATS) in NCAA college basketball sports betting action that will tip off at 9 PM ET at the U.S. Bank Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
BetUS NCAA Basketball Betting Odds: LOUISVILLE -16
Here are some of the NCAA basketball sports betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* MISS has won 13 of its last 18 games SU
* MISS has covered four of its last 12 road games
* MISS has lost 10 of its last 13 road games SU
* MISS has played its last five road games OVER the total
* LOU has covered 16 of its last 22 games
* LOU has won six of its last seven games SU
* LOU has played eight of its last 11 games UNDER the total
* LOU has covered six of its last eight home games
* LOU has played 16 of its last 21 home games UNDER the total
The stern tests have not come yet for Louisville, which suffered its only loss – and a bitter one at that – when it shot 27% against Western Kentucky and got beat by 14 points by the team who went to last year’s Sweet 16. But there is no doubting that the Cardinals have a plethora of talent, even in the wake of the graduation of “point center” David Padgett. Earl Clark (11.6 ppg, 8.1 rpg) and Terrence Williams (10.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 4.9 apg) will wind up playing at the next level, and Rick Pitino might have at his disposal the nation’s best freshman in center Samardo Samuels.
Samuels came to Louisville with a lot of fanfare and he has not disappointed, leading the team in scoring (17 ppg) on 63% shooting and providing some intimidation in the middle, with 1.3 blocks per contest. The 6’8″, 240-pound workhorse can only get better as the season progresses.
Ole Miss was hoping guard David Huertas would be the offensive leader, and he’s certainly done that. The 6’5″ junior from Puerto Rico, a transfer from Florida, leads the team with 21 points a game and is hitting 47% from beyond the arc. Unfortunately, he is the Rebels’ only consistent outside shooter. Ole Miss’s real problem is that it lacks bulk inside. Freshmen were counted on to fill roles up front, but Terrance Henry (6 ppg, 3.8 rpg) is less than 200 pounds and Murphy Holloway (7.5 ppg) is only 215. Ole Miss has lost a couple of members of its rotation for the season – guard Trevor Gaskins and swingman Eniel Polynice, who may have been able to help on the boards.
This becomes a bad part of a bad formula for the Rebels, a NIT participant last season, because Louisville has such a veteran backcourt that it can easily keep up. With Samuels in the middle and two of the nation’s most versatile players (Clark and Williams) who will be moved around a lot, its going to create matchup problems all night. The question becomes whether the Cardinals will be motivated to roll up a score in Cincinnati, where Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy once held the Bearcats’ interim coaching job after Bob Huggins stepped down. Looking at wins by 40, 35, 22 and 19 points since their loss, the answer is probably “yes.”
Furthermore, who knows at this hour whether Kennedy will even be coaching this game. At 1 AM on Thursday, he was arrested for assaulting a Cincinnati cab driver, allegedly shouting racial slurs at the driver, who is Muslim. That kind of controversy doesn’t help a whole lot.
We’ll lay the points with Louisville, the 16-point favorite in the BetUS NCAA college basketball sports betting odds.
