Big 12 Basketball on Wednesday night and we will see the West Virginia Mountaineers travel to the Lone Star State to take on the Texas Longhorns. The game is scheduled for a 9:00 pm (Eastern) start time and will be televised on ESPN 2. Currently the odds for the game have Texas favored by 4.5 points while the total sits at 126.5. Check out Sportsbook Spy to see who the Public is taking on all of today's games.
Free Analysis: Bob Huggins' Mountaineers took down Oakland, Radford, and Eastern Kentucky to close out 2012, but they were unable to carry over the momentum to the new year as they dropped a 67-57 decision at home to Oklahoma on Saturday. WVU is now just one game above the .500 mark and enters without a true road win in two tries. The Mountaineers are struggling with their offense, shooting 39.7 percent from the field as a team and 28.7 from 3-point range. Terry Henderson, a 6-3 freshman guard for West Virginia, did his part to boost those numbers Saturday against Oklahoma, shooting 6-for-11 from beyond the arc in the 67-57 loss. The Mountaineers have a pair of talented sophomore guards who know how to finish. Juwan Staten is averaging a team-high 11 points, reaching double digits in nine games. Gary Browne hasn’t been as consistent. He missed all eight of his shots against Oklahoma and went scoreless in 11 minutes, but scored 17 the game before against Eastern Kentucky. The Mountaineers also have a skilled center in 6-10 junior Aaric Murray.
Texas began to turn the corner after a frustrating start to the season in late December with an 85-67 rout of North Carolina. Rick Barnes's group then lost to Michigan State by 11 points before returning to the Lone Star State to handle Rice by 17. The Longhorns then performed very well in a tough overtime loss to Baylor in their Big 12 opener, which lowered them to 8-6 overall. Texas was on target versus Baylor, hitting 44.6 percent of its field goal attempts with assists on 20 of the 33 makes. However, the Bears used a 36-9 advantage at the charity stripe to ruin Javan Felix's sensational outing. The freshman point guard poured in a career-high 26 points on 11-of-23 shooting and was just one assist shy of a double-double. Leading scorer Sheldon McClellan (15.6 ppg) posted 21 points in the setback. Julien Lewis is also producing a double-digit scoring average with 11.8 ppg, and Felix has risen his numbers (9.6 ppg, 6.6 apg) steadily as well.
Free Pick: Looking at the fact that Texas games have averaged just 122 ppg you would think that this is a slow down team, but that is not the case. This team would like to run and they are a decent 148th in shots per game (55.8). They just don't shoot that ball well, which is why their scoring is down, but in an uptempo game they have done pretty well. In games vs Baylor, North Carolina and UCLA they still didn't shoot well, but got plenty of shots ond were able to score 72 ppg (Reg). Tonight they should get a chance to run because the Mountaineers come in ranked 56th in shots per game (59.4). Texas does play good defense, but they have allowed 64 points or more in their last 5 games vs BCS named schools, including allowing 64 points to a very weak Georgetown offense. Wes Virginia has struggled to score in their 2 true road games (53 ppg) but in all games away from home they have averaged 64.6 ppg and they come in having scored 69 ppg in their last 5 games overall. This should be an uptempo game and I expect no less than at least 64 points from each team.
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