The UConn Huskies (9-1) and Texas Longhorns (7-3) are set to face off Friday night, going head-to-head in Hartford, Connecticut. The Big East-SEC showdown will tip off at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.
The Huskies are 14.5-point favorites at their secondary home arena, and the total has been set at 145.5 points. Here is a preview of the nonconference matchup featuring odds and lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
UConn vs. Texas Preview, Prediction
UConn Preview
The Huskies entered the season as a top-five team in the country, and they have yet to disprove that ranking. UConn battered New Haven, UMass-Lowell and Columbia before eking out an 86-84 win over No. 7 BYU in Boston. And while No. 4 Arizona ended the Huskies’ undefeated season in Hartford on November 19, UConn has since notched a 61-56 win at No. 21 Kansas and two victories against No. 13 Illinois and No. 18 Florida at Madison Square Garden.
Junior guard Solomon Ball is UConn’s leading scorer at 15.0 points per game, despite his former Big East-leading 41.4% three-point percentage last year falling to 29.0% this year. Big man Tarris Reed Jr., who just returned from a two-game absence due to an ankle injury, isn’t far behind at 14.8 points per game, plus 7.6 rebounds per game. Senior forward Alex Karaban is also in the mix with 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game on .505/.435/.842 shooting splits. Georgia transfer Silas Demary Jr. is averaging 10.0 points per game, but his team-leading 5.1 assists a night lead the team.
UConn ranks No. 50 nationally in field goal percentage at 49.2%, on top of ranking No. 38 in assists, No. 26 in blocks and No. 20 in limiting turnovers on a per game basis. Their defensive stats are more impressive, with their opponents ranking dead last in assists per game, 10th-to-last in points per game and bottom-25 in field goal percentage and three-point percentage.
That defensive production shows up in the latest KenPom ratings, as UConn boasts the No. 7 adjusted defensive efficiency in the country. They also have the No. 14 offense, slotting them in at No. 7 in terms of overall opponent-adjusted net efficiency.
Texas Preview
The Longhorns lost to No. 6 Duke by 15 points in their season opener, marking a disappointing start to Sean Miller’s tenure in Austin. They followed that up by beating Lafayette, Fairleigh Dickinson, Kansas City and Rider by an average of 30.5 points, only to lose by one to Arizona State at the Maui Invitational. Texas closed out its trip to Hawai’i with wins over Chaminade and No. 23 NC State, but immediately lost by 19 at home to Virginia upon the return to the mainland.
Seven-footer and Florida Atlantic transfer Matas Vokietaitis is leading the Longhorns with 15.9 points and 1.1 blocks per game and a 67.5% field goal percentage. Dailyn Swain, who followed Miller from Xavier, is in the same camp with 15.6 points per game, all while leading the team with 3.5 assists and 1.6 steals per game. Lassina Traore bounced around between Saint Louis, Long Beach State and Xavier before landing in Texas, where he is just outpacing Vokietaitis and Swain with 7.0 rebounds per game off the bench. Former Oregon State standout Jordan Pope is the Longhorns’ most prolific high-volume perimeter player with 12.5 points per game on 37.5% three-point shooting, while St. John’s transfer Simeon Wilcher is putting up 9.4 points a night on a 43.8% clip from beyond the arc. Veteran guards Tramon Mark and Chendall Weaver, meanwhile, are averaging 9.9 and 7.3 points per game, respectively.
Texas runs an efficient offense with an efficient 89.1 points per game that rank No. 25 in the country, and the 50.6% field goal percentage that ranks No. 28. The Longhorns also rank No. 15 in free throw attempts per game, with their opponents ranking 20th-to-last in rebounds per game and field goal percentage and sixth-to-last in blocks per game.
In the updated KenPom ratings, the Longhorns come in at No. 50 overall. They rank No. 26 on offense but No. 103 on defense.
UConn vs. Texas Pick, Best Bet
For as dominant as the Huskies have looked at times this season, their wins over high major teams have come by two, 13, five and four points. Covering a 14.5-point spread will be a tall task against a Longhorn squad with only two losses – one of which came by a single point.
Instead, look towards the point total. Only two of UConn’s five games against high-major opponents have gone over 145.5 points this season. In the most recent of those instances, the Huskies were playing against a team with a top-50 pace in the country in Florida. UConn runs things at a bottom-50 pace, so playing at home against an underdog Texas team with a middling adjusted pace means the Huskies should be able to keep the flow of the game on their terms. On the whole this year, four of UConn’s 10 contests have gone over 145.5 points, including five straight unders prior to Tuesday’s matchup with the Gators.
Texas, on the other hand, is eight-for-10 when it comes to clearing 145.5 points. Recent showdowns with Virginia, NC State and Arizona State finished at 173, 199 and 157 points, after all. But looking back to their opener against Duke, the Longhorns could only muster 60 points in a 135-point affair. UConn presents a very similar analytical profile to Duke, so that is going to be a much better point of comparison than Texas’ more offensive-minded opponents. And for what it’s worth, last year’s leg of UConn and Texas’ home-and-home finished at 141 points.
