The Ohio State Buckeyes will visit College Station on Friday night to take on the Texas A&M Aggies in a top-25 showdown. The Jake Diebler era at Ohio State is off to a good start as the Buckeyes are 2-0 with a convincing win over Texas on opening night, followed by Monday’s demolition of Youngstown State. As for the Aggies, they are 2-1 and coming off two easy wins after their heartbreaking loss at UCF on opening night.

As for the actual handicap of this game, this appears to be a buy-low/sell-high position. Ohio State is riding high after its two impressive wins, but there are holes to be picked in these performances. While the Buckeyes have quality shooters on their roster in Bruce Thornton, Meechie Johnson and John Mobley Jr., this is a team that is due for a three-point regression. It is currently shooting 48% from 3 to 2 games, while its opponents are shooting just 20%. The Buckeyes may win the three-point shooting battle more often, but these are outliers. It’s also more likely that their shooting will come back down to earth when they play their first road game in a hostile environment like Texas A&M.

This also appears to be a low buy level for the Aggies. Reflecting on their opening night loss, they controlled the game for almost 30 minutes before suffering a severe drought that saw them make just one field goal in the final six minutes. The first 30 minutes of that game are more indicative of who this team really is, as they looked like the much better team in their first real road game of the year. This is an Aggies team that is much improved on both ends of the court from a season ago. They addressed their weaknesses in shooting and defense on the perimeter by adding CJ Wilcher and Zhuric Phelps, while also adding a great interior presence that fit perfectly with head coach Buzz Williams’ system in Pharrel Payne. Payne is especially important in this particular matchup, as he should be able to attack the offensive glass on a suspect Buckeyes front court that has been untested thus far.

This sentence appears to be an overreaction to Ohio State’s early season performance, which may be flawed. While teams can change quickly and there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding teams in college hoops these days, the spread in this game would be closer to 7 to 7.5 if this were played on opening night. This is a great spot for the Aggies to win a big game in convincing fashion on their way to beating the -4.5.

Ohio State vs. Texas A&M prediction: Texas A&M -4.5 (-110) available at time of publication. Playable down to -5.5.

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