The #24 Maryland Terrapins and #21 Iowa Hawkeyes will square off on Tuesday in an intriguing Big 10 matchup. The opening tip at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City is slated for 9:00 PM ET. The current college basketball odds at Heritage is showing Iowa as a 2.5-point favorite.

Hawkeyes Modest Win Streak

Iowa comes into this key conference showdown against Maryland riding a 4-game winning streak. Despite having a better overall record than Maryland, Iowa is one-half game behind them in the conference standings.
It’s also important to note, Iowa’s last 3 wins have been by a cumulative 8 points. Furthermore, the Hawkeyes knocked down last second 3-point winning shots in their previous 2 victories over Northwestern and Rutgers. Iowa failed to cover as a favorite in both those contests.

Locking Down Defensively

Maryland has played a string of recent low scoring games. Specifically, they’ve gone under the total 9 straight times. Those contests averaged just a combined 125.4 points scored per game.

The Terrapins have been nothing short of stout defensively throughout its last 5 games. During that time, Maryland has held their opponents to 57.4 points scored per game while also limiting them to an extremely low 33.3% shooting.

Maryland will be facing an Iowa team tonight that’s averaged outscoring the opposition by 8.2 points per game this season. The Terrapins have gone under in all 6 of their games this season when facing teams who were outscoring its opponents by an average of 8.0 or more points per outing. Those contests had a collective average of 122.3 points scored per game.

Presently (11:20 AM ET), Bookmaker has a posted total of 147.5 on this contest. This marks the highest total on a game involving Maryland since 12/6/18 when their opponent was Purdue. Maryland lost 62-60 on that occasion and the game easily stayed under 149.0.

It’s important to note, Maryland is an abysmal 0-19 in away games versus ranked teams since Mark Turgeon has taken over as head coach.

College Basketball Betting Angle

Iowa is 20-5 (.800), and they’re coming off an 71-69 road win over Rutgers. The Hawkeyes failed to cover that contest as a 4.0-point favorite. Iowa will be taking on a Maryland Terrapins team possessing an overall season record is 19-7 (.731). A collection of this previously mention data in addition to the current total sets up a successful college basketball betting angle which is shown below.

Any college basketball team (Iowa) with a total of 140.0 to 149.5 that’s coming off a road straight up win in which they failed to cover, and both teams (Iowa, Maryland) have a win percentage of .600 to .800, resulted in those games going 66-30 (68.8%) under the total since 1997.

Final Analysis and Pick

Maryland has scored 70 points or fewer in 7 consecutive games. However, they did manage to win 3 of those contests because of their tenacious defensive play.

Iowa has been a high scoring team throughout this 2018-2019 regular season campaign. As a matter of fact, their 81.2 points per game scoring average ranks 29th out of 353 teams playing Division 1 basketball. Nevertheless, they’ve witnessed 9 of its 15 home games going under the total.

With all being considered and relative to the total, I’m calling for a lower scoring affair. One of my Tuesday 2/19 college basketball picks will be symbolic of that prediction.
Pick: Under 147.5

Ross Benjamin is a top sports analyst and one of the sports industry's most respected handicappers. Follow him on Twitter: @RossBenjamin1 or visit his website at RBWins.com