Wright State vs Kentucky Prediction College Basketball Picks 11/4/24

The Wright State Raiders and the Kentucky Wildcats meet Monday in college basketball action from the Rupp Arena. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best bets for this game. Here’s a Wright State vs. Kentucky Wildcats prediction.

Wright State Recap

The Wright State Raiders come into the 2024-25 season off of a decent campaign last year, thanks to an 18-14 overall record including 13-7 in Horizon League play. The Raiders were knocked out in the first round of the Horizon League tournament by Northern Kentucky, ending their season as the Raiders didn’t proceed to any postseason tournaments. Scott Nagy left Wright State’s head coaching position, but his right hand man Clint Sargent slides in to take over after serving under Nagy since 2015. Brandon Noel takes over the front court for the Raiders after averaging 14.5 PPG and 8 RPG with Wright State losing pieces like Trey Calvin and Tanner Holden from last year’s team, while Alex Huibregtse had 12.3 PPG and 3.3 APG in the Raiders’ backcourt. The Raiders also splashed around in the transfer portal, including Michael Imariagbe from Houston Christian, who had 11.4 PPG and 8.5 RPG last year for the Huskies. It’ll be interesting to see if keeping it in house with Wright State was the way to go but I have to imagine it will given the continuity that Sargent has with a lot of the players.

Why the Wright State Raiders will win

• Wright State has won seven of its last eight road games.
• Kentucky has lost three of its last four day games against non-Conference opponents.

Kentucky Recap

It’s a new era in Lexington after Kentucky went 23-10 overall last year including 13-5 in SEC play. Kentucky’s postseason was short-lived once again as they were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament by Texas A&M and then as a 3-seed, upset by Oakland 80-76. John Calipari then bolted from Kentucky to take the Arkansas gig, paving the way for Mark Pope to come over from BYU to take over the coaching gig at his alma mater. It’s a new look Kentucky team as pretty much everyone either graduated or hit the transfer portal. Pope did his best to fill the void with a lot of talented players, mostly upperclassmen, led by names such as Kerr Kriisa from West Virginia/Arizona (11 PPG, 4.7 APG), Amari Williams (12.2 PPG, 7.8 RPG) from Drexel, Andrew Carr (13.5 PPG, 6.8 RPG) from Wake Forest, Kobe Brea (11.1 PPG, 3.8 RPG) from Dayton, Jaxson Robinson (14.2 PPG) following his coach from BYU, Otega Oweh (11.4 PPG, 3.8 RPG) from Oklahoma as well as Lamont Butler from San Diego State and Ansley Almonor from Fairleigh Dickinson to name a few. It’s obvious that Kentucky is more than just a brand as coach Cal left and Pope took over and players seemed to be lining up to don Big Blue, it’s just a matter of seeing if these pieces can co-exist and gel early on.

Why the Kentucky Wildcats will win

• Kentucky has won each of its last nine Monday games.

Wright State vs. Kentucky Prediction

I’m on the over here. Mark Pope had BYU playing at a fairly fast pace in his last couple of years with the program and I think with a talented lineup that can go, he’s going to implement the same pace with Kentucky in this game. On the other side, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sargent came with a lot of the same principles that Wright State had at the end of Scott Nagy’s tenure, and last year, Wright State finished top-25 in tempo. Early on, Wright State took some losses but scored 76+ in each of their first five games despite going just 1-4 SU. Give me the over.

Chris Ruffolo's Pick: Over 157.5