Free Pick | Saturday | NCAA | Feb. 8

#612 Tulsa +6.5 over Florida Atlantic 11:00 AM CT

Tulsa slipped to just 3-7 in AAC play with a loss Wednesday, but the past three losses have been very competitive games against three of the top teams in the conference, with losses to Tulane and Memphis to start February both being road games. Erik Konkol’s team went from 5 wins to 16 wins in his second season at Tulsa and this year’s team still has a chance to show improvement in record even with only eight regular season games remaining as most of the games vs. the top AAC teams have already been completed. Florida Atlantic has just posted back-to-back home wins including blasting South Florida in a 22-point home win last Sunday. Winning on the road has been difficult for the Owls with a 3-5 road record and the highest quality road win of the season came by just two points. The Owls have the third worst defensive efficiency in the conference despite sitting at 5-4 and this will be the team’s first trip to Tulsa as last season these teams only met in Boca Raton and a non-conference meeting back in 2014 was also in Florida. The Owls are just 9-12 ATS this season and are just 3-7 ATS in the past 10 games despite posting back-to-back wins and covers. South Florida was missing two key players while Florida Atlantic shot 44 percent from 3-point range in the most recent win, with the Owls also getting 27 free throw attempts. Tulsa is only 2-3 S/U in conference home games, but the losses came by six to Rice, nine in OT against East Carolina, and by 10 points to UAB for competitive games against decent competition and only one conference loss all season has come by more than 12 points as this has been a difficult team to pull away from. Tulsa is an experienced group while Florida Atlantic in the first season under John Jakus and only one time this season have the Owls won three consecutive games.