Iowa vs. Nebraska prediction and odds for Thursday, December 29th (Hawkeyes will bounce back after upset loss)

Iowa and Nebraska will both be looking for their first Big Ten win on Thursday night when they face-off in conference action.

The Hawkeyes hope to bounce back from an embarrassing 92-83 loss to Eastern Illinois. Iowa was set as a 31.5-point favorite, which made it the largest upset in college basketball history. There’s nowhere to go but up now and they couldn’t have asked for a much better Big Ten opponent in Nebraska to bounce back against.

Let’s take a look at the odds for the game.

Iowa vs. Nebraska odds, spread, and total

Iowa vs. Nebraska prediction and pick

Sometimes crazy things happen in sports, that’s why the games are played. Just because Iowa lost to Eastern Illinois in their last game doesn’t mean they’re a bad team by any stretch of the imagination. They played as bad as they’ll ever play and Eastern Illinois played as good as they’ll ever play. It happens.

That is why I’m still confident in backing the Hawkeyes to cover as favorites tonight in Nebraska.

Iowa outranks Nebraska in just about every category, including effective field goal percentage and defensive efficiency.

The area that may prove to be the biggest difference maker tonight is turnovers. Iowa turns the ball over at the 14th lowest rate in the country, while the Cornhuskers rank 205th in turnovers per possession.

If Iowa can hang on to the ball and shoot well, as they have for the majority of the season, they’ll bounce back in a big way and grab their first Big Ten win of the season.

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.