🏀 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia Prediction & Picks: CBC Championship Preview

The College Basketball Crown Championship Game is between two former Big 12 rivals as Oklahoma battles West Virginia for the $300,000 grand prize in NIL money. The game tips from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas at 5:30 p.m. ET, airing on FOX, and the Sooners are 3.5-point betting favorites.

My Oklahoma vs. West Virginia prediction sides with the Sooners, as Porter Moser’s squad seems to have turned a corner after a deep run in the SEC Tournament. I also offer a score prediction and my top team prop to go along with that point spread wager as part of my College Basketball Crown predictions.

🏀 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia picks & odds: College Basketball Crown

See all of our experts' college basketball picks based on the latest college basketball odds; picks rated on a 1-to-5 star confidence scale based on betting value.

Total wagered: 2.5 units | Max profit: 2.28 units

🏆 Who will win Oklahoma vs. West Virginia?

Oklahoma played another former Big 12 rival in Baylor in the semifinals, a team Porter Moser was just 1-5 against in his tenure. But now he gets a Mountaineers squad that his teams beat four out of five times, and I am backing the Sooners and their dynamic backcourt to win the title.

Score prediction: Oklahoma 69, West Virginia 63

💰 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia prediction & best bet: CBC Championship

Oklahoma -3.5 (-110)

West Virginia is lucky to be in the finals after Stanford committed a bone-headed shooting foul on a 3-point attempt when up three points in the quarterfinals. 

On paper, the Mountaineers’ 99th percentile overall pick-and-roll defense should provide much resistance against an Oklahoma offense that runs ball screens at a 91st percentile rate and with a 90th percentile efficiency rating.

But Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie sliced up West Virginia’s defense for 34 points on 12-for-17 shooting from inside the arc, and Oklahoma has a two-headed monster at guard with Nijel Pack and Xzayvier Brown.

🔥 Best Oklahoma vs. West Virginia team prop bet: CBC Championship

West Virginia team total Under 67.5 (-115)

Oklahoma is a .500 team relative to the O/U (18-18), but the only two games it has played this season on no rest have both seen the Under cash.

West Virginia tends to be a very jump shot-reliant team. And even though it shot nearly 64% from inside the arc against Creighton while drilling 40% of its 3-pointers, the Bluejays were decimated with injuries in their frontcourt all season.

The Mountaineers usually have a massive edge over their opponents as the second-most experienced D-I team, but Oklahoma is the seventh-oldest in terms of D-I experience.

The Sooners have been a much better defensive team of late relative to their season-long 90th-ranked unit in adjusted defensive efficiency. They have been a top-50 defense in that metric since Feb. 7, when they started a 10-3 run.

🚀 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia same-game parlay: CBC Championship

The vision behind this three-leg same-game parlay is simple: Oklahoma needs to lock down defensively so this game doesn't come down to the final possession. DraftKings is the only one of our best sports betting sites, as of this writing, to offer a team total O/U, but line shopping wouldn't have mattered much since the market is aligned with a -3.5 point spread and 137.5 O/U. 

💵 My betting record for college basketball

All college basketball picks, including SGPs, have been tracked since March 13.

💡 How I'm betting Oklahoma vs. West Virginia: CBC strategy

Follow all of our college basketball analysis and expert predictions for March Madness.

Oklahoma and the Under are full one-unit plays. While motivation levels often come into question in postseason games outside the NCAA Tournament, both teams should be locked in, especially defensively, knowing that $300,000 in prize money is on the line. 

I am a bit scorned by the way I lost my West Virginia team total Under play in its first game against Stanford, when the Cardinal botched the end of regulation with a lead, and the Mountaineers won in overtime. So even though the logic aligns with my other plays, I am only risking a half-unit on that wager, which mitigates some risk in case the game is unusually high scoring.

📊 Live Oklahoma vs. West Virginia odds: CBC Championship

Perhaps because of a lack of popularity or bettors' attention having been diverted to the Final Four this weekend, the College Basketball Crown lines for any game have not moved much after the first round. Once it became apparent how each team's roster was constructed and who was opting out, the lines have more or less remained exactly where they were upon opening.

This seems to again be the case for this Oklahoma vs. West Virginia tilt, as none of our best sports betting apps have moved off of Sooners -3.5 with an O/U of 137.5. The market is aligned on both numbers, with only slightly different levels of juice on either side.

📈 Oklahoma vs. West Virginia betting trends: CBC Championship

📺 How to watch Oklahoma vs. West Virginia: CBC Championship

• Date: Sunday, April 5
• Tipoff: 5:30 p.m. ET
• Location: T-Mobile Arena (Las Vegas)
• TV: FOX
• Streaming: Fubo