Basketball | Thursday, January 5, 2023 10:43 AM

Rice Owls vs LA Tech Bulldogs Best Bet: A Conference USA Shootout

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US Sports Expert

Rice Owls vs LA Tech Bulldogs Best Bet: Thursday, January 5th

After belting out a trio of winners on Tuesday, our resident college hoops expert Ej Garr is turning to a tilt from Conference USA for Thursday’s best bet. The Rice Owls will play host to the LA Tech Bulldogs, and the home team is listed as slight favourites while the total is inflated at 154.5.

What does Ej have in store today? We’ll bet it’s another winner so let’s see what he has to offer for Thursday.

In this article:

Rice Owls vs LA Tech Bulldogs Preview

January 6, 01:00 (UK time)

I know you took advantage of all 3 offers I handed out on Tuesday, as Kansas did exactly what I knew they would and, we made the line setters pay for it. Today, as I peruse a huge slate of games I found this line with the home team almost too good to be true.

Rice is listed at -1.5 and Pinnacle is showing 1.95 odds for that action, and do you see that total? 154.5? Baby, this is going to be an epic shootout so I am likely going to hand you a pair of plays for this tilt.

First of all, you know I have covered Rice around here before, and they were 6-point underdogs that day. Whoops, they won outright over Western Kentucky and now they are carrying a 5-game win streak into this home game against LA Tech. Rice was 4-point underdogs against UTEP on December 31, and Rice ended the year with another outright win in overtime, 72 – 67.

I mentioned Rice’s attention to the glass and its interior presence is a huge factor in their success thus far. It also is a reason they have such a high shooting% ranking 26th in the country knocking down 48.9% of their attempts.

Mekhi Mason has become quite the leader for Rice as the Conference USA portion of the schedule arrived, and he is now one of four Owls averaging double-digits for the campaign. With his 19-point effort in the overtime win over UTEP, Mason played 42 minutes of the game, and all 5 starters put up double-digit nights.

Max Fiedler came away with 14 points and 15 rebounds while Cameron Sheffield scored 11 points while grabbing 16 rebounds. And there is your interior presence in a nutshell!

LA Tech lost 4 of their last 6 games to end the 2022 portion of the campaign, but their offense can certainly compete with anyone in this conference. The 77.7 PPG rank them 73rd in the country in scoring, but guarding the 3-ball has been a debit to the ledger. At 302nd in the nation, Rice should have plenty of success both inside and outside to get this home win tonight.