free college best bets Archives

#826 ASA FREE BET ON Utah Tech -3.5 over Abilene Christian, Thursday at 9 PM ET

Because the WAC only has 7 teams, they play each other 3 times. These 2 have already met twice with Utah Tech handling Abilene Christian both times on the road. We don’t see that changing now that Tech gets the Wildcats at home. Utah Tech is 6-1 at home in WAC play with their only loss coming by 4 points vs UT Arlington in a game where Tech made just 1 of 15 from deep (7%) and missed half of their FT’s (9 of 18). That was an outlier as the Trailblazers are 2^nd in the WAC in 3 point FG% at 38% and make 73% of their FT’s in league play. Abilene Christian has won 3 of their last 4 but all 3 wins were at home and 2 of those wins went down to the wire. On the road the Wildcats are just 1-5 in conference play with their only win coming by 4 points @ Tarleton State who sits tied for last place in the conference. Taking a look at the 2 meetings between these teams this season, Utah Tech won both on the road by 6 and 15 points. However, those games were more lopsided than the final scores might indicate. Abilene Christian led for just 12% of the time in the 2 games combined while the Trailblazers led for 99% of one match up and 83% of the other. The Wildcats largest lead in either game was 4 points while Utah Tech led by 25 in one game and 14 in the other, both of those leads coming with under 6:00 remaining in the game. Both offenses like to shoot the 3 (1^st and 3^rd in the WAC in percentage of shots taken from beyond the arc) but the problem is, one defense is really good at defending the arc and the other stinks. Utah Tech ranks 1^st in the conference allowing opponents to shoot only 27% from 3 point land while ACU allows 41% from deep (last in the WAC). In the first 2 match ups those stats played out as expected with Tech making 20 of their 44 triples (45%) while the Wildcats made only 13 of 41 (31%). No reason to think that changes tonight. Utah Tech is a half game (1 game out in the loss column) behind Utah Valley for 1^st place in the WAC. They are battling for the conference title and we like them to win and cover at home tonight.