NCAAB Odds, Pick for TCU vs Georgetown

When lining up the matchups for the Big East-Big 12 Battle, there are plenty of great games among the top teams from two of America's best basketball conferences. Further down the schedule, however, the Big 12's depth advantage becomes pretty clear.

Case in point: this meeting between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Georgetown Hoyas.

It's a tough test for a Georgetown team amidst a rebuild, battling a TCU team built for the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

When Jamie Dixon left Pitt — where he led the Panthers to multiple No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament — for his alma mater at TCU, plenty of people questioned if he was letting sentimentality step in front of his chances for success.

The Horned Frogs had only been to five NCAA tournaments in the prior 50 years before Dixon took the helm.

Dixon is now in his eighth season in Fort Worth, with three tournament appearances under his belt, including two first-round victories in each of the last two years.

This season, he brought back the foundation of last year's roster, but lost all-everything point guard Mike Miles Jr. Pulling his best Moneyball move, Dixon replaced Miles not with an equal player, but in the aggregate. Via the transfer portal, Dixon brought in former Oklahoma State guard Avery Anderson III and Delaware star (with a familiar name) Jameer Nelson Jr.

Neither will find his way to the Big 12 scoring leaderboard like Miles, yet so far this year, Anderson and Nelson are averaging a combined 22 points and eight assists per game. They've been the offensive catalysts for a Horned Frog team that's built to play fast.

Dixon typically keeps his teams slower, with some of his DeJuan Blair-led Pitt teams playing glacially slow. This squad is built to succeed in space and on the perimeter, while thriving in transition. Anderson and Nelson spark that, with returning players like JaKobe Coles and Emanuel Miller taking advantage in the scoring column.

Playing at a quick pace hasn't hurt the Frogs' defense, which ranks among the best in the nation. This is a twitchy, athletic team with switchable pieces and a defensive technician on the sidelines. They'll be a factor throughout the Big 12 season.

The early days of the Ed Cooley era at Georgetown were destined to offer little insight into the program's future. The Hoyas' November schedule included just one power-conference opponent — a trip to Rutgers — and six games against teams ranked 255th or worse by KenPom.

All six of those games came at home.

Surviving that schedule without a home loss would be a slight improvement on the Patrick Ewing days. Georgetown lost non-conference games to Navy, Dartmouth and American in the last three years.

Cooley's club didn't make it out unscathed, though. The Hoyas needed overtime to beat American, beat Merrimack by just two points and lost to a Holy Cross team that's among the worst in Division I.

This rebuild will not be immediate.

If there's a reason for optimism, it comes in the form of Illinois transfer Jayden Epps. His decision to go portal-ling was an interesting one after he was a contributor as a freshman in Champaign. He's averaging 18 points and four assists per game as a Hoya, looking like a player that Cooley can build around in future seasons.

Georgetown can't win games this season unless one — or more — of the transfers or young players surrounding Epps develops into a reliable second scorer.

With the Hoyas ranking 297th (!) in Defensive Efficiency, something has to give on the offensive end of the floor.

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TCU hasn't played an opponent that can test it to date, playing six games as a favorite of 27 more more points. So far, per KenPom, the Frogs have played the easiest schedule in the nation.

I don't think a trip to D.C. to play the Hoyas changes that.

The Horned Frogs are built to be a low-variance team, especially as a favorite. They play at a fast pace, giving them plenty of sample size to prove themselves as the better team.

They're not reliant on the outside shot, ranking 336th in percentage of points scored from long range. Instead, these Frogs pound the ball into the paint, which is smart, because they're great at finishing around the rim.

According to stats from Hoop-Math, TCU shoots the fourth-highest percentage of shots at the rim (51.9%) and shoots the 27th-best percentage nationally on rim looks (68.8%).

That's largely due to how well the Frogs share the ball. TCU is second in the nation in assists, ninth in assist rate and seventh in percentage of shots at the rim coming via an assist. That's a lot of numbers with a simple summary: The Horned Frogs play fast, work to get layups and dunks and they convert those looks.

Georgetown ranks 222nd in allowing rim chances and 257th in defending at the rim, with similarly concerning data on the Hoyas' transition defense.

The game plan sets up perfectly for TCU to run at Georgetown.

The lone bright spot for Georgetown this season has been Epps, who scratched his eye in the Hoyas' last game. He's expected to play, but he could be hampered.

I'm taking the Frogs to cover here.

Pick: TCU -13.5 or Better

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