The Temple Owls and the Villanova Wildcats meet Wednesday in college basketball action from the Pavilion. Temple is sitting at 7-5 on the year. The Owls beat Delaware State in their last game. As for Villanova, they’re 8-4 this season and fresh off a win versus Xavier. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Temple hit a 1-4 stretch out of the gate this year, falling to USC, Clemson and Boise State in that time. Temple is 4-2 in the six games since with wins over La Salle, Penn, Vanderbilt and Delaware State.
In the Delaware State game back on December 22, the Owls were up by 10 points at the break. Temple scored 50 points from there in an 85-48 blowout win. Zach Hicks led the team with his 35 points and seven boards.
Over on the Wildcats’ side, they went 7-2 over their first nine games with losses to UCLA and Purdue during that time. Villanova then lost to Baylor and Creighton before picking up a win over Xavier back on December 21.
Matched up against Xavier, the Wildcats were down 38-30 at halftime. Villanova surged on a 41-20 run from there for a 71-58 win. Leading scorer Justin Moore put up 17 poitns, and Caleb Daniels added 16 points with four rebounds.
The Wildcats are 5-1 ATS in their last six at home and 1-5 ATS in their last six after an ATS win. The under is 6-1 in Villanova’s last seven overall.
Meanwhile, the Owls are 2-5 ATS in their last seven after an ATS win and 7-3 ATS in their last 10 road games. The under is 5-0 in Temple’s last five Wednesday games.
PICK: I’m probably going to try Villanova here, but staying away. The Wildcats got into some trouble against a tricky Xavier team in their last outing, but they were able to finish strong and pull off the win. Villanova hasn’t scored well in tough matchups lately; they’ve hit more than 67 points just once in their last four outings.
Temple has had their own scoring difficulties themselves, with 49 or fewer points in two of their last three. I like the Owls to look better here, but Villanova probably still has the cover.