Posted at 1:45 PM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle  -4 -105  BET365   -4 -110 Sportsinteraction -4 - 109 888Sport  -4 -110

Gallagher-Iba Arena, Stillwater, OK

Streaming: ESPN

Oklahoma St -4 over North Texas

7:00 PM EST. Spotting points in any of these tournament games lately has not been prudent and there is no doubt that the market has taken notice. Underdogs have not only covered at a high rate but have won games outright at an abnormal rate too, which brings us to North Texas and its 25-7 record going up against Oklahoma St and its pedestrian 20-15 record. The 25-7 team is now taking back points and the inefficient market is eating it up. The respective records of these two teams is not the only reason to back the dog either.

We read one analysis that pointed out that “The Mean Green are better offensively in AdjO and EFG% and do rank 50th in the country in 3-point%. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are outside the top 125 in all of those categories”. While that’s true, what’s also true is that numbers can be highly skewed based on the competition one is playing. For instance, The Mean Green’s Strength of Schedule ranked 116th in the country while OSU’s Strength of Schedule ranked 8th in the entire country. That’s a huge discrepancy in competition. When North Texas played Saint Mary’s for instance, they scored 33 lousy points and lost by 30. North Texas is a very good defensive team but that was against all the teams in the C-USA and a very mediocre non-conference schedule. North Texas did not have a single, notable win this entire year while OSU had plenty of them.

Oklahoma State beat #11 Iowa. They also defeated TCU, Iowa State and West Virginia, not to mention two wins v Oklahoma. The Pokes also lost a bunch of close ones to quality competition. For instance, they lost to Kansas by two points and to K-State twice by 8 and 5 points respectively. They were in a position to beat K-State twice. They lost to Baylor by 6 points but also played Texas twice, UConn and Wichita State. The Pokes did not have an easy game in their final 20 games of the season while North Texas had average competition the entire season with perhaps the only exception being a loss to Florida Atlantic way back in late December and that aforementioned loss to Saint Mary’s.

Far more battle tested and a serious threat to make a deep run next year, Oklahoma State is spotting deflated points at home no less, because North Texas had a much better record than they did but as we pointed out above, numbers and records can be very skewed or misleading. That’s the case here.

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