The Georgia Southern Eagles and the Appalachian State Mountaineers meet in college basketball action from the Pensacola Bay Center on Saturday night.
The Georgia Southern Eagles come into the second round after a 70-64 upset win over Coastal Carolina in the first round. Elijah McCadden leads Georgia Southern in scoring with 11.8 PPG while Andrei Savrasov has 10.8 PPG with a team-high 5.6 RPG to lead the Eagles on the glass this season to make up the duo of double-digit scorers for Georgia Southern as well on the year. Kamari Brown also has 9.7 PPG. As a team, Georgia Southern is averaging 66.6 PPG on 45% shooting from the field, 29.8% from three and 68% from the foul line while allowing 65.4 PPG on 41% shooting from the field and 32.5% from three this season.
The Appalachian State Mountaineers come into the conference tournament as the #2 seed, finishing at 18-13 overall including a 12-6 mark in Sun Belt conference play. Adrian Delph leads App State in scoring with 17.3 PPG with 5.5 RPG while Donovan Gregory has 10.5 PPG with 5.6 RPG and Michael Almonacy has 10.2 PPG with a team-high 3.1 APG to lead the Mountaineers in assists and to make up the group of double-digit scorers for App State so far this season. Justin Forrest also has 9.1 PPG while James Lewis Jr. leads the Mountaineers on the glass with 6.1 RPG as well this season. As a team, Appalachian State is averaging 66.7 PPG on 41.7% shooting from the field, 32.6% from three and 65.7% from the foul line while allowing 62.4 PPG on 42% shooting from the field and 29.8% from three this season.
Georgia Southern is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games following a win and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games as an underdog while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 games overall. Appalachian State is 5-1 ATS in their last 6 Saturday games and 6-0 ATS in their last 6 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 neutral site games as a favorite.
I get the case to be made either way here, but I’m leaning towards Appalachian State here. The Mountaineers have done a good job against lesser opposition in their last few outings and while Georgia Southern is a solid team, the offense tends to let the Eagles down at the worst possible spots, and in the conference tournament with your season on the line, it wouldn’t get much worse than that. I’ll side with the Mountaineers in this one.