Spread & Over/Under Predictions for WVU vs. Iona

A big, lopsided win coming for West Virginia? The Mountaineers are large favorites over the Gaels.

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Wednesday night, the West Virginia Mountaineers will look to get a sour taste out of their mouth after an extremely disappointing showing against Pitt last Friday.

The Iona Gaels will stroll into the WVU Coliseum fresh off their first win of the season over Vermont after dropping their first three games to Princeton, Hofstra, and Delaware.

Here are my picks for tonight's game. Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.

Star ratings (Strength of prediction):

1 Star - Not very confident
2 Star - A little confident
3 Star - Fairly confident
4 Star - Very confident
5 Star - Should be a lock to happen

Spread: West Virginia -14.5

2-star play on West Virginia (-14.5): This spread isn't too far off of my score prediction for the game, so I'm a little hesitant to make this a slightly stronger play. That being said, I expect the Mountaineers to come out playing ticked off after the performance that was just put on display against Pitt. They've had a few days to let that one marinate and the poor Gaels now have to deal with that energized, locked-in bunch.

Assuming WVU doesn't shoot the ball as poorly as they did in the Backyard Brawl, there will be several opportunities to rack up points in this game. Even if they don't shoot the lights out, Iona's full-court press could lead to some easy buckets or open looks from the perimeter.

It's a small sample size, but as a team, Iona is only shooting 29.5% from three through four games. For them to hang around and cover, they're going to need to drain probably six or more triples, and I just don't think they have that in them.

Over/Under: 147.5

1-star play on the under: In addition to their inability to hit outside shots consistently, the Gaels haven't been very successful from the charity stripe either, connecting on just 61-of-97 free throw attempts, giving them a 62.9% shooting percentage.

As Darian DeVries mentioned in his postgame press conference following the Pitt loss and again on Tuesday, WVU actually played pretty solid defense at the start of the Brawl. They were forcing Pitt to take tough shots, but they were just making everything they heaved up. As the game went on and became one-sided, the defensive intensity vanished. That won't be the case here tonight.

West Virginia will have an encouraging bounce-back performance on the defensive end of the floor, so as long as they don't push 90 points, this one should stay under the total.

Record this season:

ATS: 1-2 (33%)
O/U: 2-1 (66%)
Overall: 3-3 (50%)

Odds Disclaimer

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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