Northwestern State vs. Incarnate Word 1/7/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Northwestern State Demons and the Incarnate Word Cardinals meet in college basketball action from the Merrell Center on Friday.

The Northwestern State Demons will look to bounce back from an 89-67 loss to Texas A&M-CC last time out. Heading into Thursday’s matchup with the Islanders, Kendal Coleman leads the Demons in scoring and rebounding with 15.1 PPG and 8.2 RPG as the only double-digit scorer for Northwestern State so far this season. Cedric Garrett has 7.2 PPG and Brian White has a team-high 3.8 APG as well this season. As a team, Northwestern State is averaging 69.2 PPG on 43.1% shooting from the field, 31.4% from three and 62.3% from the foul line while allowing 81.9 PPG on 47.6% shooting from the field and 35.8% from three this season.

The Incarnate Word Cardinals will look to bounce back from an 87-56 loss at the hands of Nicholls State last time out. RJ Glasper leads the Cardinals in scoring with 13.8 PPG with 2.8 APG while Josh Morgan has 12.8 PPG in 9 games played. Drew Lutz has 11.6 PPG with a team-high 4.3 APG to lead Incarnate Word in assists while Johnny Hughes III has 11.3 PPG with a team-high 5.8 RPG to lead the Cardinals on the glass and to round out the group of double-digit scorers for Incarnate Word up to this point in the year. Benjamin Griscti has 9.8 PPG as well so far for the Cardinals. As a team, Incarnate Word is averaging 66.6 PPG on 42.7% shooting from the field, 35.8% from three and 74.6% from the foul line while allowing 77.1 PPG on 49.2% shooting from the field and 37.8% from three this season.

Both of these teams have played some stiff competition this season and haven’t been able to hang, thus explaining their records heading into conference play. However, Incarnate Word’s struggled to score all year long, and those struggles were magnified against Nicholls State on Thursday. Northwestern State’s been able to hang around and get covers against some of the tougher teams they’ve played and that has to count for something somewhere and I think it does here. I’ll take the points with Northwestern State in this one.