Houston Cougars vs Baylor Bears Prediction, Odds and Picks for Saturday, 03/08/25

The Baylor Bears will host the Houston Cougars in Waco, Texas on the final day of the Big 12’s regular season. The first matchup between these teams saw the Cougars win a slow paced and defensive style game by a score of 76-65. Despite the early money being placed on the home Baylor Bears, making a case for the Cougars to cover the short 4.5 point spread is my angle of choice. The point spread in this game opened at 7.5 early Friday afternoon, and bettors quickly pushed this number down to its current number of 4.5. The line move makes sense at first glance, as the “spot” most likely favors Baylor. The Bears are still fighting for their tournament lives while the Cougars have already clinched the Big 12 regular season title outright and are essentially locked into a top 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. However, Kelvin Sampson led teams typically don’t experience any sort of letdown performances, and this is a team that lives off their intensity on both ends of the floor. Houston has also been fantastic on the road this season, sitting with a perfect 9-0 record away from home in conference play.

The matchup also appears to favor the Cougars, and it starts with their dominance on the interior. Houston is always one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, and this year has been no different (36.9% offensive rebound rate, 13th nationally). The Cougars should take advantage of a small Bears’ frontcourt that starts 6 ‘7 ” Norchad Omier at the center position, and I don’t believe the Bears’ 244th nationally ranked defensive rebound percentage will be able to hold up nearly long enough to compete for 40 minutes. Baylor is also sloppy with the ball at times (139th nationally in turnover rate), and having poor ball security is typically bad news against a Houston team that applies pressure at a high rate. Betting against this big market move is the way I will play this game. Houston’s matchup advantages along with their ability to win road games by margin gives confidence to lay the 4.5 point spread. Let’s back the Cougars in the regular season finale.

Houston vs Baylor prediction: Houston -4.5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.

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