Wichita State Shockers vs. Temple Owls: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 2/16/2023

Time: 7 p.m. ET

Venue: Liacouras Center, Philadelphia, PA

Where to watch: ESPN+

DraftKings: Temple -4.5

FanDuel: Temple -4.5

BetMGM: Temple -4.5

Caesars: Temple -4.5

Wichita State: 13-12 (6-7 AAC)

Temple: 14-12 (8-5 AAC)

February is here and the college basketball season is taking full shape. Conference races still to be determined, the top 25 completely in shambles for what seems like every week, and there's bound to be an upset what seems like every single week. But as the season continues to progress with what seems like exciting action every week, you know our champion handicappers continue to put the work in each and every week to not only make money for them, but to ensure you get money in your pocket. All you need to do is look at the last 30 days. Scott Rickenbach has reeled in a net profit of $14,000 with a 24-9-0 run on the college hardwood. Team Del Genio has killed it with a 13-1-0 run at +$11,900. Will Rogers (28-15-0) and Matt Fargo (40-27-0) have also seen five figures over the last 30 days with college basketball. Surely, you want to get on this winning as well. All you need to do is go to bigal.com, check out our Best Bets page and make sure you are following along on the action. March will be here before you know it! Take advantage of our best best plays and find out what our champion handicappers are doing at bigal.com!

Wichita State: won 91-89 (2OT) vs. SMU

Temple: lost 86-77 at Memphis

There are moments in a season where you watch a team extensively over the course of time and you come together with the realization that the promise of that was bound to be a special season is no longer such. And unfortunately for the Temple Owls, and that appears to be the case. Losers of three straight, starting with that 16 point loss to the Houston Cougars back on February 5th, Temple is now hoping to avoid a fourth straight loss when it hosts the Wichita State Shockers on Thursday.

 

Temple was once considered the midcard darling of the college basketball season at one point. Remember that time they defeated Houston, in Houston, when it was the number one ranked team in the country? After they won that game, they went on a mini run of proportions the likes of which we had not seen before. That was part of a four-game winning streak for Temple to the point where they were 8-2 in conference play and was seriously making a charge for the regular season conference title.

 

Of course, a lot has changed since then. Houston got its revenge on Temple on February 5th, and then Temple lost by one at SMU and by 9 at Memphis. Scoring hasn't necessarily been the problem for a team that's averaged less than 70 points per game this season. But surprisingly it has been the defense that has ran out of gas lately with temple giving up more than 70 points in each of its last five games.

 

But in these last five games there has been one constant for the owls. Leading scorer Khalif Battle has led temple and scoring in each of the last five games, eclipsing 20 points in each of them. Battle had 25 points in the 86-77 loss to Memphis on Sunday. Temple actually shoots the ball very well in that game at 52%, but the defense could not stop DeAndre Williams from Memphis after his 26 points and 12 rebounds. You knew that it was going to happen at some point, you just sort of wished that it didn't happen now because you wanted to see this program make a run for a conference championship of some sort.

 

And normally if Wichita state was actually a decent team this year, you would actually enjoy the thought of these two teams going at it but there is so much discrepancy in which team is better that you would be shocked if the routine found a way to win this game. The shockers are coming off a thrilling double overtime victory, 91-89 against SMU at home on Monday. Kenny Pohto By the way with 28 points and eight rebounds while Craig Porter had 22 points on 9 of 15 shooting. Wichita State proved that it can definitely hang around teams by scoring a bunch of points, something that elevated them to absurd status back in the day. But right now there's not the consistent amount of offense for Wichita State.

 

Temple returning home is definitely going to help in this regard and the fact that they are laying 4.5 in this game shows how confident the homecourt advantage can be for this group and it has shown very much fruitful as of late. Temple needs this victory to stay in the race for 3rd place in the conference standings, not that that will eventually mean anything, but it is at least looking promising that temple could make a run if they start reeling off some victories. Temple 78, Wichita State 73

Wichita State is 6-0 ATS on the road this season.

Wichita State is 7-18 ATS off a home win the last 3 seasons.

Temple is 1-5 ATS off 2 straight overs this season.

PG: Craig Porter Jr.

SG: Jaron Pierre Jr.

SF: Jaykwon Walton

PF: James Rojas

C: Kenny Pohto

PG: Hysier Miller

SG: Damian Dunn

SF: Jahlil White

PF: Zach Hicks

C: Nick Jourdain