Utah State vs. Missouri Bracket Prediction: March Madness Odds
No. 10 seed Utah State faces No. 7 Missouri and the Aggies are 1.5-point favourites on the college basketball odds.
Utah State vs. Missouri NCAA Tournament Point Spread and Betting
The winner of this game faces either No. 2 Arizona or No. 15 Princeton in the second round Saturday. No. 7 seeds are 90-58 record against 10 seeds since the NCAA Tournament field expanded in 1985. Last year, a single 10th seed won: Miami as a 2-point underdog against USC.
It’s the 23rd trip to the NCAA Tournament for Utah State but only the fourth time the Aggies earned an at-large bid along with the 2006, 2010 and 2021 teams. USU hasn’t won a game in the Big Dance since 2001 when the 12th-seeded Aggies recorded a 77-68 overtime win against fifth-seeded Ohio State in the first round. To win the South, Utah State is +2796. It is +399 to reach the Sweet 16 and -667 for no.
Missouri is in the Dance for the 29th time and has a total of 22 victories in it, reaching as far as the Elite Eight five times. This is just the fourth time in the last 29 seasons the Tigers have been seeded higher than an 8. They are +3914 to win the South and +463 to reach the Sweet 16 with no at -833.
These teams have split two all-time regular-season meetings but haven’t seen one another since the 1968-69 campaign.
Utah St. Aggies (10)
Utah State (26-8) finished second in the Mountain West regular-season standings behind San Diego State and lost to the Aztecs in the conference tournament title game. While the Aggies are one of only 15 teams nationally with at least five players averaging double figures in scoring, the clear star is junior guard Steven Ashworth, a first-team all-Mountain West selection. He averages 16.3 points, 4.5 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals. Dan Akin was named the Mountain West’s Sixth Man of the Year and averages 12.0 ppg and 6.9 rpg.
Utah State has three players on its current roster with NCAA Tournament experience. Coach Ryan Odom is coaching in the Dance for the second time as he was the head coach at UMBC in 2018 when the Retrievers became the first-ever 16- seed to win a first-round game when they shocked top overall seed Virginia. This will be just the second time that Utah State has played a team from the SEC in the NCAA Tournament as it lost to seventh-seeded Vanderbilt 80-77 in the first round in 1988. The Aggies are 7-1 ATS in their past eight games.
Missouri Tigers (7)
Missouri was quite bad in the 2021-22 season, which led to the firing of Coach Cuonzo Martin. It appears the school did well in hiring former Cleveland State coach Dennis Gates to take over as the school improved from 12 wins in Martin’s final season to 24 this year. The Tigers also matched their best SEC record in school history with 11 conference victories, while advancing to the SEC Tournament semifinals for the first time.
Kobe Brown is the best player, leading the Tigers in scoring (15.8 ppg) and rebounding (6.3 rpg). Brown became just the second MU player to collect first-team All-SEC honors by both the coaches and the media. Brown is the only player in the country shooting at least 55 per cent from the field and 40 per cent from three-point range – aiming to become the first SEC player to do so since 1992-93. He’s a terrific student as well and became the first player in school history to receive SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year accolades. The Tigers are 0-6 ATS in their past six NCAA Tournament games.
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