Houston (21-9)
+7, o/u 139
at Southwest Missouri State (21-8), 8 p.m. Eastern
by Ultimatecapper.com Staff
The Southwest Missouri State Bears, quite possibly the best team in the country not to make the NCAA tournament, host the Houston Cougars Monday night in a National Invitational Tournament second-round match-up.
Missouri State compiled a 12-6 record in the Missouri Valley Conference, tying with Creighton and Southern Illinois for second place. But the Bears were omitted from the Big Dance, and would surely love to show that omission was a mistake by making a run through the NIT.
Mo State has won six of its last seven games after dispatching of Stanford 76-67 last Friday as seven-point home chalk.
Houston went 9-5 in Conference USA this season, good for fourth place. The Cougars are on a seven-game WLWLWLW streak after beating BYU in an NIT opening-round game 77-67 as seven-point home favorites last Wednesday.
Houston is a solid 15-9 against the spread this season, 4-3 ats as underdogs, 6-7 straight up and 6-5 ats on the road.
Missouri State has been even kinder to bettors, going 19-9 vs. the number this season, 16-6 ats as chalk, 14-2 straight up and 11-4 ats at home.
The Cougars shot just 40% from the floor, 33% from 3-point range and 64% from the line this season. They also got outrebounded by six per game. But the Houston D holds opponents to 42% shooting from the floor and led Division 1 with 12 steals per game.
The Bears are statistically solid all the way around. They shoot 46% from the field, 38% from beyond the arc, and 75% from the line. The Mo State defense holds foes to 41% shooting from the field and outrebounds opponents by 2.5 per game.
One common opponent for Houston and Southwest Missouri State this season was Texas A&M – Corpus Christi. The Bears won their encounter 95-75 in December, while the Cougars won 86-83 in January.
Outside of C-USA this season, Houston beat Arizona and LSU, and lost to South Alabama.
Missouri State beat NCAA qualifiers Oral Roberts and UW-Milwaukee this season, and fell to Arkansas by four points.
The Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings at usatoday.com rank Missouri State 17th at 86.7, Houston 80th at 79.9. The RPI at NCAAsports.com rank the Bears #21, the Cougars #54.
The Sagarin conference rankings rate the MVC 6th out of 31 Division 1 leagues, while Conference USA is ranked 17th, behind, among others, the Mountain West, the WAC, the Colonial and Big Sky.
The under is a collective 31-21 in Houston and Missouri State games this season.
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The Ultimatecapper Pick: We like Houston and the points!
