CBB x UCL

Texas Tech ML/Man City ML (-106)

Backing Manchester City for the second time tomorrow, maybe my exposure is too large on them but I don’t care they are just simply too good.

I’m going to attach my Man City write up from the Vini Jr parlay below. Man City went through all the group stages without arguably their best player in Kevin De Bruyne and still went 6-0 outscoring their opponents by 11 goals. Also, even when De Bruyne isn’t scoring goals he plays such a crucial role to their offense and without him City was still able to score 3 goals in every group stage match, total of 18 goals in 6 games.

City will be 100% healthy for this match against Copenhagen, De Bruyne and Haaland will both be back, alongside with Doku Alvarez and Foden this offense will be a major concern tomorrow for the Danish football club. In the three games where both Haaland and De Bruyne were back on the bench, City scored 3, 3, and 2 goals as well as 59 shots and 22 shots on goal during that stretch.

Offense shouldn’t be a problem tomorrow for the Citizens against a Copenhagen team that allowed 8 goals in 6 group stage games, 2+ goals in 3 of those 6 and 84 total shots (14 shot attempts per game). The only concern I have for tomorrow is Man Citys defense, they have conceded a goal in 12 of the L14 games, the offense is going to have to produce in order to avoid a scare.

Although Copenhagen beat both Manchester United and Galatasaray and stole a point against Bayern Munich a healthy Manchester City team is a different beast, even on your home soil. Even if they go down early their offense is world class and can get them back into any game, just like we saw against Brentford last week.

Next, moving onto tonight’s game between Kansas and Texas Tech, the sweatier portion of the parlay.

On a normal night I would probably be taking Kansas as an underdog but no chance I can do it here. Kansas will be without their leading scorer Kevin McCullar who is out with a knee injury which does no favors to a team that lacks depth. With McCullar sidelined his replacement Nicholas Timberlake who averages just 3.6 PPG will have to fill his role, a huge step down from McCullars 19.5.

McCullar also sat out in the game against Baylor on Saturday, moving Timberlake to the starting five and leaving just two guys off the bench in Braun and Jackson who average a combined 6.8 PPG. The lack of depth and lack of scoring for Kansas tonight is going to be a major problem in my eyes. Kansas is coming off a 3-point win against Baylor on Saturday but you could argue they deserved to lose that game. Besides giving Baylor two open threes to tie the game in the last 10 seconds, Baylor turned the ball over 21 times and out rebounded Kansas by 17 and still managed to lose the game.

Kansas still beat Baylor without McCullars just like they’ll have to do tonight but I think this is a different beast because the game comes on the road. Kansas is just 1-4 in their L5 games on the road and losing their L3 to West Virginia, Iowa State and Kansas State. Texas Tech on the other hand is 14-2 at home and is graded by Kenpom at the #1 home court advantage (take that with a grain of salt I’m not to sure what that means).

Ultimately, I’m not crazy high on Texas Tech as they are just 7-4 in the new year but have gone through a pretty tough gauntlet. They’ve faced Texas, KSU, Houston, BYU, Oklahoma, TCU, Cincinnati, Baylor and UFC all in the new year. A combined 148-62. Texas Tech is a good squad no doubt about it and has had a tough schedule the last month and a half but I still think Kansas is the better team here. The reason I am fading Kansas and backing the Red Raiders is the lack of offense Kansas will have tonight, i truly think they will struggle to score without McCullar and the minimal depth that they have. Tech wins it in a close one and we move on to Champions League tomorrow. GL.