Kentucky vs. Houston Betting Odds: Point Spread for NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16

#2 Kentucky vs. #3 Houston: NCAA Tournament Betting Odds

• Spread: UK -3
• Over/Under: 136
• Date: Friday, March 29
• Time: 9:59 p.m. ET
• Location: Kansas City, Mo.
• TV: TBS

Kentucky cruised past Abilene Christian in the first round before hanging on by a thread to beat Wofford in the Round of 32.

Houston, meanwhile, zoomed past Georgia State, 84-55, in the first round, before taking care of business vs. Ohio State.

Kentucky's Statistical Profile

At 26-5 overall and 15-3 in conference, Kentucky finished one game behind LSU in the regular season SEC standings. Interestingly, the Wildcats throttled the Tennessee Volunteers 86-69 at home, but lost to them 71-52 in Knoxville.

The two team's met again in the SEC Tournament seminfinals, with Tennessee topping Kentucky, 82-78, in a thriller. Despite the loss, Kentucky remains among KenPom's top eight team in the country and is certainly capable of making a deep run into April. — PJ Walsh

• Record: 27-6
• Adj. Efficiency Rank: 8
• Adj. Offensive Efficiency Rank: 14
• Adj. Defensive Efficiency Rank: 8
• Tempo Rank: 260

All advanced metrics via KenPom from before NCAA Tournament.

Houston's Statistical Profile

With a 29-2 overall record and 16-2 in conference, the Houston Cougars took the regular season American Atheltic Conference crown. While ranking as KenPom's 13th-best team in terms of of Adjusted Efficiency Margin, there are serious — and valid — questions regarding what to expect from Kelvin Sampson's squad.

With just the 96th-toughest strength of schedule in the country — worst of KenPom's top 20 teams — the Cougars played just two teams ranked at the time of their meeting: Oregon and Cincinnati (twice). And in the American Atheltic Conference Tournament championship game, Houston got beat handily by those Bearcats, 69-57. — PJ Walsh

• Record: 31-3
• Adj. Efficiency Rank: 13
• Adj. Offensive Efficiency Rank: 19
• Adj. Defensive Efficiency Rank: 17
• Tempo Rank: 236

All advanced metrics via KenPom from before NCAA Tournament.

Sean Koerner's Kentucky-Houston Projections

Get point spreads for this game and every possible tournament matchup with our bracket simulator built by Sean Koerner, our Director of Predictive Analytics, a former oddsmaker and FantasyPros' most accurate in-season fantasy football ranker from 2015-2017.

• Spread: Kentucky -7.5
• Total: 132.5
• Proj Score: Kentucky 70 | Houston 62.5
• Win Probability: Kentucky 76.8% | Houston 23.2%