UAB Blazers (18-11) vs. Temple Owls (11-18)
March 7, 2024 7:00 pm EDT
The Line: Temple Owls +2; Over/Under: 147
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The UAB Blazers and the Temple Owls meet Thursday in college basketball action from Liacouras Center. UAB is 18-11 on the year following a loss to Memphis on Sunday. As for Temple, they’re coming off a loss to Tulsa that dropped the Owls to 11-18 overall. Let’s get into our UAB vs. Temple prediction. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
UAB Blazers
The Blazers’ season started out on a 14-7 run through their first 21 outings. UAB would hit a 4-2 stretch in the next six with wins over Florida Atlantic, Tulsa, North Texas and Tulane. In the last pair however, the Blazers have taken losses to Wichita State and Memphis.
Matched up against Memphis on Sunday, the Blazers were up 61-46 going into the second half. UAB was pummeled 60-26 the rest of the way however and lost 106-87 in the end. Eric Gaines was the team’s leading scorer on 17 points with four rebounds and eight assists along the way.
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Temple Owls
Over on the Temple side, their year kicked off on an 8-7 run. The Owls suffered a rough 10-game losing streak from January 10 to February 15, though. Since then Temple would then take out UTSA, Wichita State and Rice before another loss versus Tulsa in their latest outing.
In the Tulsa game on Saturday, the Owls came out of the break with a 32-23 deficit. Temple outscored the Hurricane 44-40 from there but it wasn’t enough in an eventual loss 72-67. Tops in scoring was Hysier Miller on 19 points with three rebounds and four assists in 40 minutes.
ANDREW’S FREE UAB VS TEMPLE PREDICTION
I’ll stick with UAB. The Blazers had a great first half against a tough Memphis team in their last outing—but not so much in the second half. UAB would eventually shoot a nice 54.2 percent in that one but they also got outmuscled on the boards 42-30 and coughed up 18 turnovers. It’s been a mixed bag during this 1-3 run; the Blazers have given up 74 or more points in all three losses.
As for Temple, they were looking pretty good during their three-game win streak and didn’t play too badly versus Tulsa in their last outing. The Owls should produce a fairly strong effort at home on Thursday, but I think UAB powers out the cover in an interesting matchup.
