Appalachian State vs UC-Santa Barbara 12/21/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos and the Appalachian State Mountaineers meet in college basketball action from the Footprint Center on Wednesday.

The UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos will try to build on their 85-73 win over Portland State in their last game. Ajay Mitchell leads the Gauchos in scoring and assists with 14.7 PPG and 4.7 APG while Miles Norris has 13.1 PPG with 6.5 RPG and Josh Pierre-Louis has 10.4 PPG with 3.8 RPG to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for UCSB so far this season. Andre Kelly also has 9.9 PPG with a team-high 8 RPG to lead the Gauchos in rebounding up to this point in the season. As a team, UC-Santa Barbara is averaging 73.4 PPG on 48.8% shooting from the field, 33.1% from three and 68.1% from the foul line this season.

The Appalachian State Mountaineers will be out to build on a 100-32 win over subdivision Regent in their last game. Donovan Gregory leads App State in scoring and assists with 12.5 PPG and 3.8 APG with 4 RPG as well while Tyree Boykin has 10.5 PPG and Terence Harcum has 10.4 PPG to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for Appalachian State up to this point in the season. Justin Abson also has a team-high 5.9 RPG to lead the Mountaineers on the glass up to this point in the season. As a team, Appalachian State is averaging 79.7 PPG on 47.3% shooting from the field, 34.7% from three point range and 73.1% from the foul line this season.

UC-Santa Barbara is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 7-2-1 ATS in their last 10 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 games following an ATS win. Appalachian State is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 Wednesday games and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the over is 4-1 neutral site games.

I get the case to be made for App State here as neutral floors can sometimes be the great equalizer between two teams, but I’m still having a hard time with this App State team. I mean you can beat all the subdivision opponents you want, and while the covers against Wake Forest and Furman are nice, it doesn’t change the fact that App State has a tendency to stall offensively throughout games. That’s not going to fly against a Gauchos team that can do it all on both ends of the floor and do it well. I think the Gauchos win this one by 7 points at the very least, so give me UCSB laying the points in this one.