TCU vs Oklahoma State: Let the Big Man Eat

Xavier Edmonds gets a golden matchup against a horrid Oklahoma State defense tonight. And it’s a defense that has been awful all year, but has been missing their rim protector for the last couple weeks. Parsa Fallah tore his ACL at the end of their win against West Virginia on February 24. And while they haven’t played horribly as a team overall since, they continue to get pounded at the rim. Benjamin Ahmed and Mekhi Ragland are the only bigs the Cowboys have right now, which is not enough to hold Edmonds (and Punch).

Edmonds doesn’t really even need open looks at the rim, he just uses his strength and makes tough shots. And he should have plenty of opportunity to do that against a thin frontcourt. He also should have a good rebounding matchup too. Both because of the weaker matchup against the bigs but also because of how TCU defends. They hedge screens hard which typically is done with Punch, leaving Edmonds alone in the paint. When he defends a non-shooting big he’s able to camp a lot more than some of his previous matchups he’s struggled in rebounding-wise such as just last game against Thiam, who for some reason now is stretching the floor a ton more.

Edmonds has been terrific in Big 12 play, racking up 10 double-doubles. He’s coming off of a rare down game however, where he got into a bit of foul trouble and ended with just 9 points and 2 rebounds against Cincy. A much tougher matchup facing Moustapha Thiam and Baba Miller at that. In their two regular season matchups, Edmonds had 15/10/2 and 18/10/0, which both cleared this projection. In a faster paced game with Oklahoma State struggling to contain the bigs, I like him to have a nice bounceback outing.