Western Kentucky vs UTEP Pick – Basketball Predictions & Odds 3/8/23

The UTEP Miners and the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers meet in college basketball action from the Ford Center at the Star on Wednesday as part of the Conference USA basketball tournament. Let’s dive into the odds, injuries, matchup history and make a prediction for this game.

Odds

Western Kentucky is listed as a 1.5-point home favorite with the total for this game set at 133.5 points.

Injuries

For UTEP, Mario McKinney Jr. is out indefinitely because of a suspension while Luke Frampton is out for the year for WKU with a knee injury.

Matchup History

Western Kentucky’s 73-68 win over UTEP back on March 2^nd, 2023, made it six straight wins for the Hilltoppers while sweeping the season series.

Trends

UTEP is 1-9 ATS in their last 10 games against a team with a winning record and 1-5 ATS in their last 6 neutral site games while the over is 6-1 in their last 7 games overall. Western Kentucky is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games following an ATS loss and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games following a loss by 20 or more points while the over is 9-4 in their last 13 games overall.

Pick

I’m leaning towards WKU here. I don’t love this game, but the reality is that WKU has owned this matchup for a few years now, and the Hilltoppers have had some measure of success on a neutral floor this season. UTEP hasn’t played a neutral site game to this point and the Miners were a pretty hard team to back on the road for much of the season. I’ll side with the Hilltoppers in this one.