The Prairie View A&M Panthers and the Arkansas State Red Wolves meet Friday in college basketball action from ASU Convocation Center. Prairie View is 3-2 on the season so far and coming off a loss to UTSA. As for Arkansas State, they’re sitting at 3-2 as well. The Red Wolves beat TN-Martin in their last game. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Prairie View got off to a nice start this year with three straight wins. The Panthers beat Kansas CC 94-79, then North American 95-68 and Washington State 70-59. Prairie View took their first loss in game four to TN-Martin.
The Panthers faced off against UTSA on Tuesday. Prairie View was down 36-32 by the break and ended up losing 82-75. Tops in scoring was William Douglas with 19 points, and Jeremiah Gambrell added 18 points in 32 minutes of work.
Over on the Arkansas State side, they went 2-2 over their first four games. The Red Wolves beat Harding 86-55 in the opener, then lost to LSU 61-52 and beat Lyon 92-58. Game four was another loss, this time 75-60 to UC Davis.
On Tuesday versus TN-Martin, the Red Wolves had a 29-29 tie in the first half. Arkansas State scored 41 points in the second and powered out a 70-64 win. Markise Davis put up 15 points, and Omar El-Sheikh added 11 points with 11 boards.
PICK: I’m going to take a stab on Prairie View. Probably not touching this one, though; you could make a pretty good case either way. That said, Prairie View didn’t shoot terribly versus UTSA in their last game, notching 40.6 percent from the floor with a 32-30 rebounding edge (11-4 offensive). Prairie View gave up 52.2 percent shooting to the Roadrunners overall, though. As for Arkansas State, they’ve scored well in easy matchups so far but have struggled against comparable or better teams. All things considered, this should be a pretty competitive matchup.
