Liacouras Center - Philadelphia, PA
Tip-off: Wednesday, 7:00 p.m. ET
Line: Villanova -8, Total: 132.5

No. 1 Villanova steps outside of conference play when it visits Big 5 rival Temple on Wednesday night. Both teams are red hot and enter Wednesday with five-game winning streaks.

The Wildcats (12-11 ATS overall) are rolling with a 14-1 SU record in their past 15 games, and followed a seven-game ATS win drought (0-6-1) with three ATS victories in their past four contests. They have won five straight games by double-digits, but failed to cover the massive 27-point spread in Saturday's 73-63 win over St. John's. The Owls (13-9 ATS overall) are also sizzling with eight wins in the past nine games. This includes four straight victories as an underdog (or pick), and they topped USF 77-65 on Sunday despite allowing the Bulls to shoot 55.1% from the floor. Villanova is 12-6 (SU and ATS) in this series since 1997 and has won the past two meetings in blowout fashion, 90-74 at Temple two seasons ago, and 85-62 at home last season. But there are plenty of reasons for bettors to side with either red-hot school on Wednesday, as the Wildcats are 11-1 ATS in February games in the past two seasons and 19-7 ATS when facing a good team (60% to 80% win pct.) in this same timeframe. Meanwhile, the Owls are 8-1 ATS when coming off a double-digit win in conference play over the past two seasons and are 35-14 ATS at home when facing a team with a winning record after 15+ games under head coach Fran Dunphy. The one injury concern for either team is little-used Temple C Ernest Aflakpui (10.2 MPG, 2.6 PPG), who is questionable for Wednesday (knee).

Can Temple keep the score close versus the No. 1 team in the nation? For the answer, connect to The Platinum Sheet for all the StatFox Experts Best Bets throughout the season. The experts continue to flourish with a huge 66% ATS record (63-33-4) in the past four weeks, led by StatFox Dave at 74% ATS (14-5-1) and StatFox Zach going 68% ATS (13-6-1) over this timeframe. StatFox Brian has been on fire for two months, with a stellar 66% ATS record (29-15-1) in the past nine weeks. StatFox Gary is also sizzling, going 68% ATS (23-11-1) over the past seven weeks, and StatFox Scott is a strong 58% ATS (19-14-2) in this same timeframe.

Villanova has a solid offense that scores 75.8 PPG on 46% FG and 77% FT (4th in nation), but what really makes this team special is a defense that limits opponents to a meager 61.0 PPG (8th in D-I) on 38% FG (11th in nation). Three-point shooting can be an issue though, as the Wildcats make only 32.5% threes (29% on road) and allow 33.4% threes, including a hefty 36% on road. Rebounding (+3.3 RPG margin) and ball-handling (1.4 Ast/TO ratio, +2.8 TO margin) are both solid, and this team rarely finds itself in foul trouble with only 17.1 fouls per game (38th-fewest in D-I). Villanova has five players averaging double-figure scoring, led by G Josh Hart (15.2 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 1.2 SPG), who shoots 51% FG, 35% threes and 74% FT. Hart had scored at least 10 points in every game this season before producing only seven points on 1-of-6 FG Saturday. But Hart expects a big bounce-back performance against Temple, who allowed him to score 20 points (6-of-7 FG, 3-of-3 threes, 5-of-5 FT) with seven rebounds, three assists and two steals in only 25 minutes last season. G Ryan Arcidiacono (12.4 PPG, 3.9 APG, 1.3 SPG) was pretty quiet that day with seven points (2-of-7 FG), three turnovers and only one assist. But the senior has scored in double figures in 10 of the past 15 games and is 16-of-16 from the foul line over the past four contests. Junior F Kris Jenkins (10.8 PPG, 3.8 RPG) ended a streak of eight straight double-figure-scoring games with Saturday's four-point dud (1-of-6 FG, 0-for-4 threes), and was held scoreless (0-for-2 FG) in 17 minutes versus the Owls last season. The other big contributors to this team are C Daniel Ochefu (10.5 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 1.8 BPG) and G Jalen Brunson (10.2 PPG, 2.8 APG). The senior Ochefu had 10 points and five boards versus Temple in the last meeting, and is coming off a monster game against St. John's where he pumped in 25 points (11-of-14 FG) with nine rebounds and three steals. The freshman Brunson had seven turnovers in Saturday's win, but he has been strong offensively this month with 11.0 PPG on 6-of-15 threes (40%) in the four February contests.

Temple's offense struggles at times, producing only 69.4 PPG (263rd in nation) on 41% FG (305th in D-I) and 34% threes (220th in nation) this season. The team has the third-fewest turnovers in the country (9.3 TOPG), but is weak on the glass with a minus-1.8 RPG margin (249th in nation). Defensively, the Owls allow only 67.4 PPG on 42% FG, and are especially strong in guarding the three-point arc (30% threes, 13th in nation). Although Temple forces only 11.4 TOPG (301st in D-I), it commits just 16.7 fouls per game (23rd in D-I). The team's lone double-digit scorer is Quenton DeCosey (16.6 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 2.5 APG, 1.2 SPG), who has 12 straight games of at least a dozen points. He scored 23 points in Thursday's upset win versus UConn and had a well-rounded 12 points, six rebounds and six assists in Sunday's win over USF. Although DeCosey netted a team-high 18 points at Villanova last season, he made only 4-of-16 shots (2-of-7 threes) in that loss. Junior G Josh Brown (8.2 PPG, 4.7 APG, 4.3 RPG, 1.2 SPG) leads the American in minutes played (35.9 MPG) and has the conference's top Ast/TO ratio at 3.32. He is coming off a huge performance on Sunday where he tallied 11 points, nine assists and three steals while committing just one turnover. F Jaylen Bond (9.9 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 1.0 SPG) has seven double-doubles this season and produced seven points and seven rebounds versus the Wildcats last season. The other two significant scorers are F Obi Enechionyia (9.8 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.0 SPG) and G Devin Coleman (9.7 PPG, 2.8 RPG).