Central Arkansas vs Oklahoma Odds, Pick for Thursday

Below, we have Central Arkansas vs Oklahoma odds and a pick for Thursday.

After going 15-17 last season, the Oklahoma Sooners have been one of the best stories in college basketball to begin this season. However, the Sooners suffered their first loss of the season to North Carolina — an 81-69 blowout in the Jumpman Invitational — last time out.

Oklahoma fell five spots to No. 12 in the AP Poll this week, but is still 10-1 on the season.

On Thursday, the Sooners will return home to face the Central Arkansas Bears.

Last time out, Central Arkansas lost, 65-54, to Western Illinois, snapping a two-game winning streak and putting it to 3-10 this season. Oklahoma will be the first of two high-major opponents for UCA this week, with a trip to Missouri on deck Saturday.

Its first two games against high-major opponents haven't gone well, losing to Vanderbilt and Kansas State by 44 points.

Oklahoma won last year's matchup 87-66 and it's a heavy favorite once again.

Central Arkansas has two double-digit scorers in freshman forward Tucker Anderson and junior guard Elias Cato. Anderson leads the team at 14 points per game, primarily from long range. He's shooting just 38.4% from the field, but 36.5% on 6.7 3-point attempts per game.

Cato is averaging 10.5 points and is second on the team with 5.8 rebounds per game. He's a bit more efficient than Anderson, as he's shooting 43.7% from the field and 38.1% from 3. However, there's not much shooting around them.

As a team, Central Arkansas is shooting 33.7% from 3-point range. It struggles even more inside, as it's making just 43.5% of its 2-point field goal attempts (352nd). A lack of length inside doesn't help, as Anderson is the tallest player on the roster at 6-foot-9 and he has a perimeter-oriented game.

The Bears are 302nd in scoring offense (69.2 PPG) and 320th in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency. However, they're even worse on the defensive end.

The Bears are 343rd in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency. Much of the damage comes from beyond the arc, as they're allowing opponents to shoot 38.1% from deep, 342nd-worst in Division I. They're also allowing opponents to shoot 50% on 2s and are 301st in effective field goal percentage defense.

Their lack of length or size also shows up on the defensive end, as they're 342nd in defensive rebounding percentage. They could be in for a long night against the Sooners.

After head coach Porter Moser went 34-33 in his first two seasons in Norman, he went to the transfer portal to transform his roster.

The early returns have been great, as guard Javian McCollum is on second the team with 14.3 points and 3.6 assists per game. Forward John Hugley IV is averaging 9.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in just 18.8 minutes a night.

Jalon Moore, Le'Tre Darthard and Rivaldo Soares have been solid contributors in Oklahoma's balanced attack as well.

However, the biggest reason for Oklahoma's early success this season may be the leaps taken by a pair of former top-100 recruits in Moser's 2022 class, guards Otega Oweh and Milos Uzan.

Oweh leads the team with 15.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game. He's hard to handle as a slasher, as he's making 65.1% of his 2-point attempts. Uzan is filling the stat sheet up by averaging 8.5 points, four rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.5 steals per game.

Oklahoma is in the top 20 nationally in both 2-point field goal percentage and effective field goal percentage. It should be able to hammer Central Arkansas in the paint and on the glass. The Sooners are 30th in offensive rebounding percentage and 41st in defensive rebounding percentage.

Oklahoma will likely force many misses in this matchup. The Sooners are seventh in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency and effective field goal percentage defense. They're also holding opponents to just 27.1% from 3, 13th-best in the country.

Oklahoma is eighth in the country in scoring margin at 19.9 points. It's averaging 83 points per game and it's scored 80 points in six of its first 11 games this season. It also scored 87 points against the Bears last season and is now much improved.

The Sooners' team total will likely be between 86.5 and 87.5 tonight. However, with a spread of this size, the line may not be offered by the books.

However, when Oklahoma has scored a lot this season, it's typically jumped on teams in the first. In six games against non-high-major opponents this season, Oklahoma has led by 16 points at halftime in five of them and by 14 in the other.

With a spread of 30.5, I'm projecting that the first-half spread will be between -14.5 and 16.5 points. At -14.5 or 15.5, Oklahoma would be 5-1 covering in this spot.

Given how Oklahoma has steamrolled inferior competition, I prefer it to jump on UCA in the first half rather than playing the full-game spread. While it may cover both, the backdoor would be wide open in the second half for a bad beat once the starters are likely out of the game.

Pick: Oklahoma 1H Spread

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