Xavier Musketeers vs Connecticut Huskies Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 02/03/26

We head to the Big East on Tuesday night, a league that clearly belongs to UConn while everyone else is just happy to be there. The Huskies will host the Xavier Musketeers, a team they beat in Cincinnati by a score of 90-67 in late December. UConn has pushed their winning streak to 17 games now, although notably, they are winning games but are regularly not covering. The Musketeers just snapped a 3-game losing streak by beating DePaul, but this is UConn we are talking about. I don’t see Xavier staying close in this one. Give me the Huskies to cover the big number at -17.5.

The thing about UConn is that they play a deliberate style of offense that is ruthlessly efficient. They rank outside the top 300 in pace of play, but they are 30^th in offensive efficiency. Their defense is even better, and it grinds on teams, especially when they just had to guard for 30 seconds on the other end. It is not a style that leads to a lot of blowouts, but we shouldn’t discount the 23-point win already in this matchup. UConn does not allow 3s and they rebound aggressively, and if you take away outside shots and second chance points, I am not sure how Xavier stays in this one. The Musketeers like to play fast, but it is hard to speed up the Huskies. This is just a bad matchup for the X-Men, and I am taking UConn to roll.

Xavier vs UConn Prediction: UConn -17.5 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable at that number.