#816 ASA TOP PLAY 10* Utah -3 over Washington State, Thursday at 9 PM ET - The Utes are in desperate need of a win here after losing 3 straight games. Two of those games have come on the road @ UCLA and @ USC. They started the Pac 12 season with 5 straight wins and now sit at 5-3 in league play, still good for 4th place in the conference. WSU, on the other hand, has won 3 straight, so now we have an undervalued home team vs an overvalued road team. Wazzou has played 8 road games this year and lost 7 of those games. The Cougars have struggled big time on offense in their road games this year averaging only 63 PPG on just 38% shooting. WSU also relies very heavily on the 3 point shot with 39% of their points on the season coming from beyond the arc (16th most in the nation). The problem here is that Utah is an outstanding defensive team overall (5th nationally in eFG% defense) and the Utes hare fantastic guarding the arc allowing opponents to make only 28% from deep (9th best nationally). The Utes have an average PPG margin of +17 PPG at home this season and they are in a must win spot off 3 straight losses. The host in this Pac 12 series has covered 15 of the last 22 meetings and we expect that to be the case again on Thursday night. We’ll lay the small number with Utah at home on Thursday.