The Northern Illinois Huskies and the Chicago State Cougars meet Monday in college basketball action from Jones Convocation Center. Northern Illinois enters this one at 2-6 so far. the Huskies lost to Dayton in their last game. As for Chicago State, they’re 3-6 this year and fresh off a loss to Illinois State. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Northern Illinois started out the year with a win over Washington, then lost to Indiana, Missouri, Boston U, Little Rock and Marquette. The Huskies managed a win over Eastern Illinois, then lost their last outing to Dayton.
In the Dayton game, Northern Illinois scored just 22 points in the first half and 19 more from there in a flat 79-41 loss. Trendon Hankerson scored seven points with two rebounds, and Anthony Crump added seven points with three boards and four steals.
Over on the Chicago State side, they won their first pair over St. Thomas MN and SIUE, then hit a losing streak to Loyola, UCSB, Pacific, Bowling Green and Loyola-MD. The Cougars beat Tennessee State, then fell to Illinois State.
In the Illinois State loss on Saturday, Chicago State had a 36-32 deficit at halftime and ultimately couldn’t catch up in an 80-71 loss. Jahsean Corbett was the top scorer with 17 points and six boards.
Chicago State is 4-0 ATS in their last four at home and 4-0 ATS in their last four after an ATS win. The Cougars are 5-0 ATS in the last five overall.
Meanwhile, the Huskies are 1-5 ATS in their last six road games and 7-20-1 ATS in their last 28 overall. NIU is 8-1 ATS in their last nine Monday games.
PICK: I’m sticking with Chicago State, but probably not touching this one. The Cougars have been pretty flat most of the year, but the good news is that they’ve shown some life over the last three games or so. Chicago State has hit 64 or more points in two of their last three; that follows a stretch of five straight outings with 58 points or fewer.
As for NIU, they were outplayed by Dayton in pretty much every category during their last game, and three of the starters didn’t even score. This should be a better matchup for the Huskies, but I don’t think it’ll go very well either.