The Cincinnati Bearcats take on the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence, KS. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. ET on CBS.
Kansas is favored by 10.5 points on the spread with a moneyline of -600. The total is set at 134.5 points.
Here’s my Cincinnati vs. Kansas predictions and college basketball picks for February 21, 2026.
Cincinnati vs Kansas Prediction
My Pick: Kansas -11.5 or Better
My Cincinnati vs Kansas best bet is on the Jayhawks to cover the spread. For all of your college basketball bets, be sure to find the best lines by using our live NCAAB odds page.
Cincinnati vs. Kansas Odds
| Cincinnati Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+10.5 -110 | 134.5 -110 / -110 | +440 |
| Kansas Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-10.5 -110 | 134.5 -110 / -110 | -600 |
- Cincinnati vs Kansas spread: Kansas -10.5
- Cincinnati vs Kansas over/under: 134.5 points
- Cincinnati vs Kansas moneyline: Cincinnati +440, Kansas -600
Cincinnati vs Kansas College Basketball Betting Preview
Cincinnati Basketball
It's year five for Wes Miller at Cincinnati, and he's yet to lead the Bearcats to the Big Dance. That will likely lead to a coaching change in the Queen City when the season ends.
As we currently stand, you can maybe build a plausible path to the promised land this season. Cincinnati is just 14-12, with notable wins over Iowa State, Baylor and UCF.
T-Rank has Cincy making the NCAA Tournament in 6% of its bracketology simulations, a Dumb and Dumber level of "still a chance," but the Bearcats would need to win out or come close.
That won't be easy with three road games and three games against surefire tourney teams. Injuries aren't helping either. Freshman big Shon Abaev is sidelined, as is sixth-year guard Kerr Kriisa (yes, he's still around).
The Bearcats will be reliant on two small guards to carry them offensively. Day Day Thomas and Jizzle James (son of NFL legend Edgerrin) create with the ball, both off the bounce and as pull-up shooters.
Those guards are joined in the frontcourt by twin towers Baba Miller and Moustapha Thiam. Both standing 6-foot-11 or taller, the Bearcat bigs clog the lane without adding any shooting to clear space for their guards. This leads to a sluggish offense with no room to operate, ranking 172nd nationally on that end of the floor.
Cincy stays competitive by locking down the other end of the court, where the Bearcats rank 11th nationally by forcing teams into tough 2s and contested shots.
Kansas Basketball
Slowly, as the season wears on, this Kansas team has become one of the biggest stories in college basketball. The Jayhawks are one of the 15 best teams in the sport, having lost just once since January 10.
This team is talented enough to make a deep run in March or into April, led by freshman phenom Darryn Peterson. The 6-foot-6 wing is one of the best freshmen in the country, a top-tier NBA prospect, and possibly the best freshman Bill Self has ever coached in Lawrence.
But there's a catch.
Peterson has played in just 15 of the Jayhawks' 26 games, due to injuries and illness. When he does play, it appears to us in the outside world that he's doing so with a strict minutes restriction.
Peterson has topped 30 minutes just six times this season, while playing 24 or fewer minutes in seven of his 15 games, despite being the best player on Self's team.
Compare that to Peterson's competition to be the top pick in the draft, BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa. He's played 30 or more minutes 21 times, with a season-low 24 minutes in a blowout win over Holy Cross.
Peterson's handling of this issue is particularly odd. In multiple games this season, he's appeared to ask out of the game, sometimes never to return.
He didn't play the final 11 minutes in a loss to UCF. He didn't play the final 16:46 in the highly anticipated matchup with Dybantsa and BYU. He didn't play the final seven minutes in a loss to Iowa State or the final eight minutes in a win over Baylor. He was a late scratch after warm-ups with illness when Kansas beat the top-ranked Arizona.
It seems at this point that Peterson isn't going to play to his full potential in any regular season game this season. Hoop-Explorer has a method for tracking "garbage time" possessions when the game is out of reach and credits Peterson as playing just two such possessions all season.
Compare that to Dybantsa again, who has played 41 such possessions.
The most recent example came in Wednesday's win at Oklahoma State, when Peterson signaled for a sub with 17 minutes to play, having scored 23 points in 19 minutes so far. He then didn't return.
In the postgame press conference, Bill Self seemed surprised, saying, "I didn’t anticipate that at all tonight. I thought he was good to go. We only got 18 minutes out of him. That’s disappointing because he could have had a really big night. It’s happened often enough that our guys have learned to play without him, even if that’s not the way we want to play.”
To Self's point, despite the fact that Peterson is both talented and incredibly productive when he plays, Kansas has found a way to manage with or without him on the floor.
The difference in net rating when he plays and sits is negligible, and the Jayhawks play like a top-20 team either way. Defensively, Kansas is slightly better without Peterson, but the Jayhawks shoot it better and find better shots with him leading the offense.
For bettors, this is a mess. How do you feel putting your money on a team whose best player might simply check out of the game with more than a quarter to play? The number says somehow it might not matter, but some things go deeper than numbers.
Cincinnati vs. Kansas Betting Analysis
Despite all the Peterson drama, it's just hard to pick against the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse. When he was a late scratch against Arizona, I talked myself into the Wildcats on the road and instantly regretted it.
Kansas is 880-122 all-time in Allen Fieldhouse. Bill Self is 342-22.
In the last 20 years, Self is 165-146-7 ATS at home (53%), and in home games against Big 12 foes, he's 95-82-6 (54%). When filtering for spreads between 10 and 15.5 points, his Jayhawks are 41-31-2 (57%).
With or without a major contribution from Peterson, the Jayhawks are built to bottle up the Cincinnati guards and body the Bearcat bigs inside. Kansas should run away here.
My Pick: Kansas -11.5 or Better
