Wichita State vs Central Arkansas 11/7/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Central Arkansas Bears and the Wichita State Shockers meet in college basketball action from the Charles Koch Arena on Monday night.

The Central Arkansas Bears will try to take a step forward after a 2021-22 season where the Bears finished at 11-20 overall, including a 7-9 mark in ASUN conference play. The Bears ended up taking out Stetson in the first round of the conference tournament before falling to Jacksonville in the quarterfinals. The Bears will be tasked with replacing a pair of double-digit scorers in Darious Hall (13 PPG, 6.5 RPG) and Jared Chatham (11 PPG, 6.3 RPG), but do bring back some reinforcements like Camren Hunter (team-high 14.1 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 3.4 APG), Eddy Kayouloud (11.9 PPG, 4.9 RPG) and Collin Cooper (9.9 PPG). There’s enough continuity for Central Arkansas to continue to grow, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Bears can follow through.

The Wichita State Shockers will try to bounce back from a frustrating 2021-22 season, finishing at 15-13 overall, including a 6-9 mark in AAC conference play, earning the 7-seed in the AAC tournament. The Shockers’ stay in the tourney was short-lived as they were bounced in the first round by Tulsa. It’ll be a new look Shockers team in 2022-23, with Tyson Etienne (14.9 PPG), Ricky Council IV (12 PPG, 5.4 RPG), Morris Udeze (10.2 PPG, 6.1 RPG) and Dexter Dennis (8.4 PPG, 5 RPG) all done with the program. In from the transfer portal comes Gus Okafor (14.6 PPG, 6.4 RPG) from Southeast Louisiana, Xavier Bell (11 PPG) from Drexel. Colby Rogers (14.1 PPG) from Siena and Jaron Pierre (9.9 PPG) from Southern Miss. The individual talent is there all throughout the lineup for Wichita State, it’ll just be interesting to see if the Shockers can put it all together in 2022-23.

Central Arkansas is 1-3-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 3-1-1 ATS in their last 5 road games while the under is 5-2-1 in their last 8 games overall. Wichita State is 2-6 ATS in their last 8 games overall and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 Monday games while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 Monday games.

I get the case to be made for Wichita State at home here as the Bears are usually the doormat against their power conference opponents early on in the year. However, this Wichita State team is far from a world beater and it looks like it’s going to take them some time to really get cohesion going. Oddsmakers seem to think so too as against other teams this would usually be a 25-30 point line. I think getting this number, I have to take a shot on Central Arkansas getting the points here.