VCU vs Saint Peter’s College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions 11/9/2021

The St. Peter’s Peacocks and the VCU Rams meet in a college basketball matchup from the Stuart Siegel Center on Tuesday night.

The St. Peter’s Peacocks will be out to build off of a 14-11 record in 2020-21, including a 10-6 mark in MAAC conference play to finish with the #3 seed in the conference tournament. The Peacocks earned a bye to the quarterfinals where they took down Rider before being upset by Fairfield in the conference semifinals. The Peacocks have the blessing of bringing back pretty much their entire roster from last season including leading scorer KC Ndefo for his senior season after logging 13.7 PPG and 6.5 RPG last year. Fousseyni Drame had 8 PPG and 7 RPG while Daryl Banks III added 11 PPG last season Matthew Lee is also back after leading the Peacocks with 3.6 APG in addition to his 7.9 PPG and Isiah Dasher comes in as the lone transfer on the team after putting up 7.9 PPG with Portland. Hassan Drame also contributed 5.9 PPG and 5.7 RPG last year. As a team, St. Peter’s averaged 63.2 PPG on 40% shooting from the field, 32.3% from three and 69.8% from the foul line while allowing 61.5 PPG on 38.6% shooting from the field and 33.6% from three last season.

The VCU Rams will look to build on a solid 2020-21 season that saw VCU finish with a 19-7 overall record, including 10-4 in A-10 conference play, earning the #2 seed in the conference tournament. VCU beat Dayton and Davidson before falling to St. Bonaventure in the conference championship game. Despite the loss, VCU still received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament as a #10 seed, but the Rams didn’t have a chance to make a run as a positive COVID test bounced VCU from the tournament. The Rams were hit hard in the offseason, losing Bones Hyland to the NBA and Ace Baldwin to a ruptured Achilles in a pickup game after finishing 2^nd in the A-10 in steals in his freshman season. The Rams do bring back Vince Williams after logging 10.6 PPG and 5.2 RPG last season while Hason Ward had 5.1 RPG last year. Marcus Tsohonis had 10.4 PPG for Washington and his transfer into VCU’s program becomes more crucial with the loss of Baldwin as Tsohonis likely becomes VCU’s lead guard. Jimmy Nichols also transfers in from Providence after putting up 6.1 PPG last season. Only time will tell if Baldwin’s injury deals a blow to VCU’s hopes in the A-10 this season or if the Rams have enough in the tank to carry on and take the next step.

Saint Peter’s is 14-3 ATS in their last 17 games as a road underdog and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 Tuesday games. VCU is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 home games and 21-9 ATS in their last 30 Tuesday games while the under is 10-4 in their last 14 games overall.

I’m not sure if we see VCU break out the havoc defense like year’s past, but this game features two teams that heavily relied on defense as their main weapon last season. I think this is a first to 65 wins kind of game so give me the under here.