Akron vs South Dakota State 11/7/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The South Dakota State Jackrabbits and the Akron Zips meet in a college basketball matchup from James A. Rhodes Arena on Monday night.

The South Dakota State Jackrabbits will look to take another step forward after the first 30-win season in program history, finishing the year at 30-5 overall, including a perfect 18-0 record in the Summit League, earning the #1 seed and taking out South Dakota and North Dakota State for their first conference tournament crown since 2018. The Jackrabbits received their spot in the NCAA tournament, but were bounced as a 13-seed by Providence by a final score of 66-57. The Jackrabbits will be tasked with replacing three double-digit scorers from last year’s squad, with Douglas Wilson, Baylor Scheierman and Noah Friedel all gone after combining for 46.8 PPG last season. But the cupboards still have a lot of talent in them, including Zeke Mayo, who has breakout potential written all over him, and redshirt freshman Matthew Mors, who transfers in from Wisconsin as a former South Dakota Mr. Basketball in high school. Mayo, Alex Arians and Charlie Easley give SDSU a trio of guards that all shot well over 40% from three last year, including the latter pair who shot at or just below 50% from downtown. Luke Appel and Matt Dentlinger also return to do the damage inside for the Jackrabbits in the frontcourt.

The Akron Zips will look to take another step in the right direction under coach John Groce, finishing the year at 24-10 overall, including 14-6 in MAC conference play. The Zips were the #4 seed in the MAC tournament, upending Buffalo and top-seeded Toledo before beating Kent State in the MAC title game to earn their spot in the Big Dance. The Zips were upended by UCLA in the first round, ending their tournament run in a heartbeat. Leading scorer Ali Ali is gone, but the Zips have a ton of returning production, including a pair of double-digit scorers in Xavier Castaneda and Enrique Freeman, with Freeman averaging a double-double per game last year. The Zips also did a solid job of hitting the transfer portal and bringing in Trendon Hankerson within the MAC from NIU after putting up 11.4 PPG for the Huskies last season. The pieces are there for the Zips to contend in the MAC again but only time will tell if that’s going to be the case.

South Dakota State is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the over is 7-3 in their last 10 road games. Akron is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games overall while the under is 5-2 in their last 7 home games.

There isn’t a ton of instances where I’d be going against South Dakota State, mainly because this team is battle tested and has a pedigree of success behind them. However, there’s just a lot of turnover for South Dakota State here as this lineup looks completely new, and it’s hard to know what to expect from them in the opener. Akron’s got some new faces as well, but the bulk of their core is still in tact, and they have the benefit of being at home here. I’ll side with Akron laying the points here.