The Ohio State Buckeyes will travel to Hartford on Friday for a true road non-conference game against the UConn Huskies. This matchup will be UConn’s second game out of three that they play a home game inside Peoples Bank Arena rather than Gampel Pavilion, where they split their home games. The UConn crowd should be there in full force like their last home game, where they cruised to a 83-41 victory over Wagner. The Buckeyes will be a much harder opponent than Wagner but I expect UConn to beat Ohio State by double digits on Friday night. Ohio State’s defense gave up 94 points to BYU in their only other high major game of the season and I do see them being able to stop UConn’s offense enough to cover the spread.
The spread is currently 11.5 points in favor of UConn and I expect the Huskies to cover that on their home court. The Huskies have been impressive in their first three games, including a 85-77 win over Michigan on a neutral site in Boston. They scored 85 points on Michigan and I expect even more points in this matchup. Since the season started, Ohio State’s defense is ranked just #172 in adjusted efficiency and #230 in effective field goal percentage. Their two point defense has struggled as well, letting Marshall shoot 61.5% from two point land in their last game. Ohio State beat Marshall by just 10 points, so I do not see them keeping in close against one of the best teams in the country in UConn.
*UConn -11.5 available at time of publishing. Playable at -14*
