Kansas vs Texas Southern Prediction: Should You Expect a Blowout?

Kansas vs Texas Southern Prediction: Should You Expect a Blowout?

Texas Southern has been one of my favorite teams to bet over the past few years because of how hard they play in these specific situations, but they obviously have a tall task facing the #1 seeded Jayhawks. Let's break down the game.

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Kansas vs Texas Southern Prediction

Kansas comes into this matchup as one of the four number one overall seeds and rightfully deserved as they had an excellent season. They are 28-6 on the season and playing some of their best basketball at the moment. They come into this game on a 5-game winning streak and winners of the Big 12 tournament after knocking off WVU, TCU, and Texas Tech all in impressive fashion.

Kansas is a team who has gotten it done with their high-powered offense this season. They are currently ranked sixth in adjusted offensive efficiency, 27th in effective FG%, 30th in 2-point%, and 75th in 3-point shooting so they have struggled to shoot the three at times but overall have been very good on offense.

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They also play at a fairly fast-paced and love to get out in transition to showcase their speed and athleticism. They are currently ranked 46th in lowest time of possession at 16.5 seconds per touch so they play fast and loose.

On the defensive side of the ball is where Kansas has been susceptible this season. In their losses, they gave up 74, 75, 80, 79, 80, and 74 points. So, the magic number for Kansas this year has been 70 as they are 21-0 this season when holding their opponents to 70 points or fewer. If Kansas can hold Texas southern to fewer than 70 points, then I also think there is a high likelihood that they win by 25+ and move onto the next round easily.

Texas Southern is a squad who is really good ATS in this type of role. They always play an insanely hard non-conference schedule every year to prepare them for the SWAC tournament and they are usually extremely competitive. Just this year, Texas Southern went into Florida and beat them straight up as 24-point underdogs.

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Kansas is a much different beast compared to Florida, but the point remains on how Texas Southern plays as a huge underdog. Texas Southern only lost to Oregon by 17, lost to St Mary’s by nine, lost to Washington by seven, lost to NC state by eight, and lost to BYU by 17 as they went 5-0 ATS in those games.

Texas Southern is the definition of a scrappy team who plays really good defense and plays hard for a full 40 minutes. They are also a very deep team as well as nearly 10 guys see regular action. They make wholesale lineup changes fairly frequently throughout the game to ensure that they don’t get too gassed over the course of the game. I think Texas Sothern’s season ends here but this is a scrappy group who plays hard until the very end, so I won’t be surprised if they are competitive in this game.

This game is almost identical to when Texas Southern played Michigan last season in the NCAA tournament. Texas Southern was a 16 seed who won the play in game and then faced Michigan, who was a 1 seed, as a 20-point underdog.

In that game, Michigan dominated the first half as they led by 18 points at halftime but then Texas Southern outscored them in the second half 42-40 to cover the full game spread. Kansas is a team that can be exploited on defense and given Texas Southern’s track record as a heavy underdog, I will roll with the SWAC champions here.

My lean for this game is Texas Southern +22.5 -110. My final score prediction is 85-66 Kansas, so I also have a lean to the OVER 144 in this game as well. My official pick for this game is Texas Southern +22.5 at -110 for 1 unit.

Kansas vs Texas Southern Line Movement

Kansas vs Texas Southern Pick

• Texas Southern +22.5 at -110 (Bet $110 to win $100)