Iowa State basketball: Cyclones just nine-point favorites at Texas Tech
By Brian Spaen
In an interesting turn of events, Iowa State basketball isn’t even double-digit favorites heading into Lubbock late Saturday afternoon.
The Cyclones opened as 9.5-point favorites on multiple offshore sportsbooks early Friday evening. Over at Covers, five sportsbooks haven’t had their line change yet, but the consensus is 75 percent of the public is already hitting on Iowa State.
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While they were double-digit favorites at home against Kansas State, Iowa State hasn’t blown out many opponents with a pulse, and every Big 12 game has been a close affair so far. It’s also been really hard for the conference’s teams to win on the road.
Still, not giving Texas Tech double-digit points is a bit of a surprise. The Red Raiders have zero home court advantage, and TCU is coming off of a 20-point victory there. Iowa State is coming in with one of the best offenses in the nation and the best scoring offense in the Big 12.
Betting trends
Also, there aren’t many trends in favor of Texas Tech. They are just 1-6 at the spread in their last seven games in the Big 12 and 0-5 at the spread in the last five games where the opponent coming in has a winning record overall and a winning road record (2-1 when not including neutral site games).
On the flip side, Iowa State is 5-0 at the spread in their last five Big 12 games and against teams with a winning record. Texas Tech barely qualifies as they are still above .500 but have come in losing all six Big 12 games so far.
The only stat that may have chiseled the Cyclones’ spread is that they are 3-7 at the spread in their last 10 games at Lubbock. The favorite is 11-5-1 in the last 17 meetings.