Iowa State Will Exact Revenge Over Bears

Baylor vs. Iowa State, 9:30 ET

It is currently 1 AM in Chicago, where I live and I'm up writing an article about College Basketball. Either my life is amazing, or I'm a complete degenerate. I'll let you know, my life is amazing. I get to spend time writing about something I'd be doing anyway, so kudos to Outkick for helping to make it possible. I like to think that I'm helping make your life amazing too by giving out winners and I've gone 4-0 over the past two days. The reality of my situation is that I had a basketball game for my league that I care about (shout out Hatchetball) and I am still wired from the game. Let's focus on what is relevant and what does matter: Winning another college basketball play, and this one will come in a game between Baylor and Iowa State. 

This isn't the only ranked matchup on the card for today, but in my eyes, it is the most intriguing. The Big 12 is the best conference in College Basketball and I think we will probably see maybe 11 teams make it into the NCAA Tournament. You could at the very least make a case for 11. Baylor will certainly be one of the teams that makes the tournament and is a team that has treated us very well this season. On the year, they are 23-9 with a 11-7 conference record. While the 11-7 record isn't exactly eye-popping, they did end the year in third place. Yesterday, they took down Cincinnati in a relatively easy game. They won that game by 12 and it wasn't much of a sweat. As a team, Baylor does a few things well: they work well together offensively, rebound fairly efficiently, and rotate on defense which gives them the ability to at least stay in most games. Even looking at their losses this season, only one of them came by more than 10 points. That means that they are being competitive in every game. They did play Iowa State once already this year, it was a game on their home court and they took down the Cyclones with a final of 70-68. 

Baylor Bears PG RayJ Dennis shoots a three vs. the Oklahoma Sooners at Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion. (Chris Jones-USA TODAY Sports)

Not to be outdone, Iowa State is playing very good basketball and finished ahead of Baylor in the Big 12 standings this year. They were able to run out to a 24-7 record before adding another victory over Kansas State yesterday. The worry always is how teams respond when they need to play in back-to-back games. I made mention of it being tough for professionals. While there is no travel, it still can be very tough on a lot of these teams who are used to playing in games multiple days apart. I made mention of Baylor being close in the majority of their losses, the same can be said for Iowa State who has also lost only one game by more than 10 points this season. All of their losses also came on the road or on a neutral court. This is important to me as I think it is the sign of a better-than-average team. The Cyclones have four players averaging double figures and another two that are almost there. They rebound well as a team rather than have one big man that just dominates the glass. While that can work well for them at times, it can also be a bit of an issue if they face a team with a strong rebounder. Luckily for them, Baylor really isn't type of team. 

In the first match, ISU struggled in the first half and went into halftime down by 12. In the second half they were able to win by 10. Sure, that wasn't enough, but it does show a bit of resistance from the team. They almost even won the game or sent it to overtime, but the last-second shot was too late. Here's the bad news for Iowa State - they were outrebounded, they shot 35% from three, and just 39% overall. The good news is that Baylor is highly unlikely to shoot 52.3% from deep again, and Iowa State was able to force the Bears into 20 turnovers in the game. I'm taking Iowa State to win this one at the -125 moneyline. 

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