Michael Alexander

Rating: 2 Units

Fresh off its biggest victory of the young season, Texas Tech takes on another challenge today with a road game against Butler as part of the inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle. The Red Raiders rolled past Michigan 73-57 last week at the Battle for Atlantis to finish 2-1 at the event. The Bulldogs (5-2) delivered a similar showing in Orlando at the ESPN Events invitational, with back-to-back wins against Penn State and Boise State after a narrow loss to No. 19 Florida Atlantic. Now two teams with reconstructed rosters collide as they work toward establishing a long-term identity. For Texas Tech (5-1), this is the first true road game, and that's a challenge first-year coach Grant McCasland wants his team to embrace.

Rating: 2 Units

The UNC Wilmington offense will overpower the East Carolina defense. The Seahawks are too deadly from long range to be stopped by an inferior defense such as East Carolina’s which is allowing 74.0 points per game and 48.2% shooting. East Carolina’s opponents shoot 34.3% from 3-point territory and UNC Wilmington is second best in the nation from three-point territory hitting 43.5% of their 3-point bombs. Wilmington is averaging 85.7 points per game and it's not because they play uptempo, as they are just 237th in adjusted tempo at 67.8. It's because they are excellent shooters. Leading scorer Trazarien White is shooting 60.6% overall and 36.4% from 3-point territory and three of the top five scorers shot 51.7% or higher. East Carolina doesn't have the shooters to keep pace with the hot shooting Wilmington. East Carolina has failed to cover the spread in four of its last five.

Rating: 2 Units

San Antonio has lost 12 straight games and haven’t won since downing the Suns in back-to-back road games October 31 and November 2. The Spurs are a dismal 1-8 at home this season and they are trying to get their young players up to speed, which of course, leads to a lot of growing pains. Atlanta has been up and down this season but they have a variety of guys that can pile up points in a hurry. San Antonio has a generational talent in Wembenyama but he’s still adapting to the NBA style. Meanwhile, Atlanta is a team full of guys that have been around and contributed at this level for a while. Young and Murray lead the way as the Hawks cruise to a victory to get back to the .500 mark on the season.

Thursday Night Game of the Month

Rating: 4 Units

Dallas looks to close the gap on the Lions, 49ers, and Eagles in the NFC Playoff Picture. For all of their success, though, there is a tax that must be paid, and tonight it comes as an inflated 9-point favorite. It’s more than they laid here to the Jets and 3-points more than what they were favored by here against New England. Topping it off, they have a same-season revenge rematch on tap with the Eagles. Pete Carroll’s crew enters this affair 3-1 SU and 4-0 ATS in the last four games in this series. Carroll is also 16-2 SU and 15-3 ATS in Game Twelve of the season, including 8-0 ATS as a single-digit dog. With those boxes checked we wrap it up with the fact that Seattle is 14-1 ATS when coming off consecutive losses as an underdog, including 10-0 ATS in the last ten games