The Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Baylor Bears meet Tuesday in college basketball action from Foster Pavilion in Waco. Here’s a Baylor vs Texas Tech prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best Baylor vs Texas Tech pick.
Texas Tech Red Raiders Betting Preview
It’s been a pretty solid year so far for the Red Raiders. Texas Tech lost two of their first six games, then hit a 7-1 stretch featuring wins over New Orleans, Wyoming, LSU, Northern Colorado, Duke, Winthrop and Oklahoma State. After another loss to Houston, Texas Tech has since beaten Colorado, Utah and BYU. Over the first 18 games of the year that gives the Red Raiders a 14-4 overall record in the books.
In the BYU game on Saturday the Red Raiders entered the second half with a tiny 32-31 lead. Texas Tech had a solid run from there on a 52-40 score, eventually taking the win 84-71 at home in the end. Leading the team was JT Toppin, who doubled up on 27 points and 12 rebounds. Christian Anderson had 22 points with seven assists and four rebounds and LeJuan Watts added 20 points with eight rebounds and two assists.
Baylor Bears Betting Preview
Over on the Baylor side, they managed a 10-2 run over their first dozen games this year. The only losses the Bears recorded during that time came courtesy of St. John’s and Memphis. Since then however, Baylor has struggled on a 1-4 stretch. The only victory they’ve been able to get in that time was over Oklahoma State; otherwise the loss came versus TCU, Iowa State, Houston and Kansas. That gives Baylor an 11-6 record in their first 17 games of the season.
Matched up against Kansas back on Friday the Bears were in the locker room with a 43-37 deficit. Baylor didn’t end up getting any closer than that on a 37-25 second half and eventually took the road loss 80-62. Cameron Carr was the leading team scorer in the defeat, putting up 24 points and four boards. The only other double-digit scorer for the Bears was Tounde Yessoufou with 20 points and seven rebounds in 37 minutes.
Why the Baylor Bears will win
- Baylor has won seven of its last eight home games against Texas Tech.
- Texas Tech has lost each of its last five Tuesday road games as an AP-ranked team.
- Baylor has won the first half in seven of its last eight home games against Texas Tech.
Why the Texas Tech Red Raiders will win
- Texas Tech has won each of its last 15 games against non-AP-ranked opponents.
- Baylor has lost each of its last nine games against AP-ranked opponents.
- Texas Tech has won the first half in each of its last 12 games against non-AP-ranked opponents.
Baylor vs Texas Tech Prediction
I’ll just stay with Texas Tech. I’d like to see the Raiders get off to a faster start here than they did at home versus a great BYU team this past weekend, though. In that one Texas Tech ended up shooting 45.8 percent from the field and a nice 82.6 percent (19-of-23) from the line. The Raiders were competitive on the boards and had 13 team assists but got outscored pretty significantly 40-28 in the paint. Still, Texas Tech has three straight wins now, and they’ve scored a combined 172 points over their last pair.
As for Baylor, they shot just 36.1 percent from the field with a 42-18 deficit on points in the paint in their most recent loss to Kansas. The Bears gave up 50.8 percent shooting on the other side as well. Baylor is just 1-4 in their last five games, with three road matchups and two ranked teams mixed in there. This is going to be another tough one.