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College Basketball Betting

Xavier vs. Texas prediction: what we’re doing with the ‘lucky’ Longhorns

Action Network
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Texas' Marcus Carr during second half of a second-round college basketball game against Penn Statein the NCAA Tournament Saturday, March 18, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa.

Texas' Marcus Carr during second half of a second-round college basketball game against Penn Statein the NCAA Tournament Saturday, March 18, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (Morry Gash/AP)

We have a Xavier vs. Texas prediction as the two teams battle for a chance to advance to the Midwest regional final.

Texas opened as a four-point favorite, but we now see that number has ticked up by a half-point at some sportsbooks.

The total is also on the move as it’s been bet up a point after opening at 148.5.

While I tend to agree with the move, I’m not sure if the scoring will be balanced enough on both sides to push this game over the total.

Xavier vs. Texas odds

Odds provided by FanDuel

Spread: XAV +4.5 (-115) vs. TEX -4.5 (-105)

Moneyline: XAV (+152) vs. TEX (-184)

Total: Over 149.5 (-110) | Under 149.5 (-110)

Xavier vs. Texas pick

Texas team total: under 77.5 (-120)

Xavier vs. Texas analysis

The Texas Longhorns come into this game with an impressive resume: 15 Quad 1 wins, three double-digit victories over Kansas and Gonzaga and a No. 7 NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking.

However, all that’s in the rearview as they must now focus on facing Xavier on Friday night.

As good as the Longhorns have looked this season, I’m not entirely sold on their offense.

Ken Pomeroy has them 15th in his adjusted efficiency metrics, scoring 116.4 points per 100 possessions.

Texas is a bit of a unique team in that although it likes to get out in transition, it’s not necessarily running to finish at the rim or to create 3-point opportunities.

Per ShotQuality, the Longhorns are 12th in transition and 273rd in shots at the rim.

Their catch-and-shoot/off-dribble 3-pointer rankings are no better than 166th in the country, and their highest skill is shooting the midrange shot, a statistic in which they rank ninth.

The analytics gurus in this modern age would likely suggest that playing style has a negative expected value (-EV). Thus, this is a team that looks destined for regression.

After checking ShotQuality’s luck factor that subtracts a team’s actual win percentage from its expected win percentage, I found that with a large enough sample size, we should expect Texas to regress on average by about 14.43%.

It wasn’t until the Longhorns’ second-round victory over Penn State that I wanted to dive deeper into their numbers.

Toward the end of the game, Texas struggled to score points, with some players seemingly passing up good shots.

The only player who showed aggressiveness was Dylan Disu, who led all scorers with 28 points.

After going back and watching the tape, 11 of Disu’s 14 field goals were a combination of a midrange floater, jump hook or turnaround shot.

His remaining three field goals were all finished at the rim. That was a lot of production for a player who averages only 9.1 points per game.

I looked at four high-scoring games for Texas and found that their biggest scorers were players who averaged roughly 10 points per game.

And while each player is undoubtedly talented, there’s a certain randomness to this team’s play.

As the pressure heightens with each game down the stretch, I think the Longhorns will struggle to produce some of those high-scoring performances we saw earlier in the season.

Thus, I love the idea of playing them under their team total of 77.5 points.