Baylor vs. Texas odds: Win probability, final score prediction for Bears, Longhorns

Life in the Big 12 is often cruel, and the road doesn’t get any easier for Baylor and Texas, who face each other Saturday afternoon after each team suffered losses earlier in the week.

The Longhorns dropped one they probably shouldn’t have as a pesky UCF team came into Austin and picked up the win, with plenty of drama following that contest. Meanwhile, Baylor dropped an overtime battle on the road against a Kansas State club that is really coming on strong.

So, one of these programs will suffer an 0-2 week while the other gets the bounce-back win. For all the relevant game notes — TV info, point spreads, predictions, etc. — go ahead and read below:

Odds for Baylor vs. Texas

As is typically the case in a Big 12 matchup, the home team is the favorite as Texas is projected as the slight winner by FanDuel. They’re 1.5-point favorites to avoid a home sweep this week and -132 on the money line.

On the other side of the coin, Baylor isn’t a huge road dog and are sitting at +110 on the money line as of Saturday morning. The over/under has been set at 146.5.

Final score predictions

College basketball’s leading analytics guy, Ken Pomeroy, isn’t quite on the same page with Las Vegas when it comes to his model’s prediction of the ‘Horns-Bears matchup. With their No. 6 offense in the country per KenPom, Baylor comes out as the two-point favorite in a projected 76-74 win. KenPom also gives Baylor a 57% chance outright to win the game.

When it comes to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI), Baylor again comes out as the small favorite. It gives the Bears a 54.5% chance of grabbing the win in Austin, but by a mere 1.2 points. The analytical models disagree with the oddsmakers on this one, although all parties are predicting a very tight matchup.

The BPI also assigns each game a matchup quality score denoting how good of a game each contest will be, based on things like the size of a point spread and how highly the squads rank. So this battle between two solid Big 12 squads that is nearly dead even via the predictions ranks as ESPN’s sixth-best college hoops game of the day, with a matchup quality score of 94.3

We should be in for a good one, folks.

How to watch Baylor vs. Texas

Time: 12:00 p.m. ET, 11:00 a.m. CT
Channel: (ESPN), FuboTV (streaming)
Location: Austin, Texas (Moody Center)

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What a way to kick off another loaded conference play Saturday slate. The 12-5 Longhorns, desperately needing to snap a two-game skid welcome one of the most potent offenses in the league in Baylor, who themselves are looking to get right in order to keep pace in the conference championship race. Bears vs. Longhorns will tip us off shortly.