BYU Basketball opens as 14-point favorite over Oral Roberts

BYU will host Oral Roberts as a 14-point favorite in the final non-conference game before WCC play begins. KenPom predicts a 83-70 final score and gives BYU a 89% chance to win.

Oral Roberts is 7-5 on the year versus a challenging non-conference schedule. They’ve played four top 50 opponents and were largely competitive to each team in losses. The closest they came to pulling an upset was in the season opener at Oklahoma State; they were down by one point with under a minute left before losing by 5.

Four of their seven wins are versus non-division one teams, however, and only one of the wins is versus a KenPom top 150 team. ORU’s best player is 6-foot-8, 240 lbs forward Emmanuel Nzekwesi. Nzekwesi has missed some time this year with injury, but he is back and played in the past couple games. He averaged 14.8 ppg and 8.5 rpg last season and is just over that so far this season.

BYU should take of business, but Oral Roberts is #133 in KenPom and isn’t a total pushover. They’ve been close to pulling off some upsets, so BYU will need to play reasonably well to avoid a discouraging loss heading into WCC play.