Ohio State vs Texas Prediction College Basketball Picks 11/4/24

The Texas Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes meet Monday in college basketball action from the T-Mobile Arena. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best bets for this game. Here’s a Texas vs. Ohio State prediction.

Texas Recap

The Texas Longhorns come into this one looking to build on a decent first season under Rodney Terry in 2023-24, finishing 21-13 overall including 9-9 in Big 12 conference play. The Longhorns would bow out of the Big 12 tournament in the second round but would still get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Texas would take out Colorado State in the first round before being knocked out by Tennessee in the second round. There is a lot of turnover from last year’s squad, with most of the starters gone, like Max Abmas, Dylan Disu, Brock Cunningham, Tyrese Hunter, Dillon Mitchell and Itheil Horton. However, those pieces were replaced by freshman Tre Johnson, as well as transfers like Jordan Pope (17.6 PPG, 3.4 APG) from Oregon State, Tramon Mark (16.2 PPG, 4.3 RPG) from Arkansas, Arthur Kaluma (14.4 PPG, 7 RPG) from Kansas State and Julian Larry (11 PPG, 4.8 APG) and Jayson Kent (13.5 PPG, 8.1 RPG) from Indiana State. Kadin Shedrick does return after putting up 7.7 PPG in a relief role last season and will likely see action as the starting center. There’s a lot of balance within this new look Longhorns team and it could be one of the better Longhorns groups in recent memory.

Why the Texas Longhorns will win

• Texas has won nine of its last 10 games against non-AP-ranked opponents at a neutral venue.
• Ohio State has lost three of its last four games against the Southeastern Conference.

Ohio State Recap

The Ohio State Buckeyes come into the 2024-25 season looking to bounce back from a frustrating 2023-24 season where the Buckeyes finished 22-14 overall including 9-11 in Big Ten play. Ohio State would take down Iowa in the Big Ten tournament before losing out to Illinois in the quarterfinals, bursting OSU’s bubble and sending the Buckeyes to the NIT. Ohio State would knock off Cornell and Virginia Tech before falling to Georgia in the quarterfinals. Jake Diebler would have the interim tag removed and be Ohio State’s new head coach, but there is still a challenge, replacing a few key pieces himself with Roddy Gayle Jr., Felix Okpara, Jamison Battle and Zed Key all gone. However, Bruce Thornton is a solid piece to have return after logging 15.7 PPG and 4.8 APG last season and he’ll get help from Meechie Johnson Jr. coming over from South Carolina after putting up 14.1 PPG last season. Ques Glover hopes to have a clean bill of health after putting up 14.7 PPG two seasons ago with Samford, and the Buckeyes brought in a pair of high-upside bigs in Aaron Bradshaw from Kentucky and Sean Stewart from Duke. Micah Parrish will add some grit at the small forward spot, transferring over from San Diego State. Now we really get to see what Diebler has in his bag of tricks after a strong finish to last year and this is a tricky spot to start.

Why the Ohio State Buckeyes will win

• Ohio State has won each of its last 14 Monday night games.
• Texas has lost six of its last eight night games against the Big Ten Conference.

Texas vs. Ohio State Prediction

I’m going to take a shot on Ohio State here. I like all of the additions that Texas made to bring in a talent injection with all of the pieces lost, but I think it could take time to gel as a team. Ohio State and the continuity with guys like Thornton is huge in a season-opener on a neutral floor like this, and even if Texas wins, this feels like a tight game where it could come down to who has the ball last to win this game. I’ll side with Ohio State and the points here.

Chris Ruffolo's Pick: Ohio State +3