College Basketball Picks – Ohio State at West Virginia

Saturday, January 23 — 2 PM ET

West Virginia got a hard-fought victory on Wednesday against pesky Marshall, but the truth of the matter is that the Mountaineers have not shot very well recently, failing to hit 40% in three of their last four games. When this team has been a successful NCAA basketball pick, it’s generally three-pointers that have kept them alive.

Ohio State will clearly be looking for revenge. Last season’s meeting, held in Columbus, turned out to be a disaster for the Buckeyes, who lost by 28 points to Bob Huggins’ Mounties. David Lightly, one of the key players for Ohio State, was missing in that game, and Jon Diebler and Evan Turner combined to make six out of 27 shots. Ohio State sank just 31% of his shots overall. Turner is a different player now, an all-around threat who has rebounded from a back injury to take back his role as the team’s do-everything man.

Here are some of the NCAA basketball betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

• OSU has won and covered four of its last five games
• OSU has covered one of its last five road games
• OSU has lost five of its last six road games SU
• WVU has covered two of its last seven games
• WVU has won 14 of its last 17 games SU
• WVU has played four of its last five games UNDER the total
• WVU has covered one of its last five home games
• WVU has won ten of its last 11 home games SU
• WVU has played four of its last five home games UNDER the total

In Ohio State’s last game against Northwestern, Turner scored 20 points, dished out eight assists and pulled down 13 rebounds in the 76-56 win. On the season, Turner has averaged 18.6 points, 9.7 boards, and 5.5 assists, which makes him a prime candidate for All-America honors. This is a more complete team with him as the "point forward" in effect.

West Virginia is just 3-7 ATS at home, and the kind of defense Huggins prefers to play, which is to take out the opposing team’s big gun whenever possible, may not work here with Diebler (45% from three-point range) and an improved William Buford perfectly capable of scoring points for this team. What Turner has to concentrate on is keeping West Virginia off the offensive boards, as the Mounties have grabbed 16.1 offensive rebounds per game, which is third best in the country.

Ohio State is in good form, winning three in a row, beating Purdue, Wisconsin and Northwestern, all of which have appeared in the Top 25 at one time or another, hitting at least 51% against all of them. We’ll look for them to extract revenge here, just as they did against the Badgers, as we take the Buckeyes as an underdog NCAA college basketball pick.

JAY’S PREDICTION: OHIO STATE BY 2