Dayton Flyers (11-2) vs UMass Minutemen (10-3)
2024-01-07 13:00:00 EDT
The Line: Betting Odds: Dayton Flyers -9 -- Over/Under: 151.5
(Get latest betting odds)
The UMass Minutemen and the Dayton Flyers meet Sunday in college basketball action from UD Arena. UMass is currently 10-3 overall this year. The Minutemen have won four straight, most recently over Duquesne. As for Dayton, they’re riding an eight-game win streak at 11-2 overall and fresh off a victory over Davidson. Let’s get into our UMass vs. Dayton prediction. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
UMass Minutemen
The Minutemen managed a 4-2 run out of the gate this year with losses to Harvard and Towson. UMass has been on a 6-1 stretch in their last seven outings, though. The wins in that time came versus UMass Lowell, West Virginia, Portland, Old Dominion, Siena and Duquesne.
In the Duquesne matchup back on Wednesday, UMass carved out a 40-32 edge by halftime. The Minutemen hit a 40-29 run in the second half and took the victory 80-61. Leading the team in scoring was Rashool Diggins with 16 points and three rebounds in the winning effort.
Dayton Flyers
Over on the Flyers’ side, they lost two of their first five games this year, falling to Northwestern and Houston along the way. Since then it’s been a winning streak as Dayton has taken out Youngstown State, SMU, Grambling, Troy, Cincinnati, Oakland, Longwood and Davidson in the eight games since then.
Matched up against Davidson in their Wednesday outing, Dayton didn’t have a ton of trouble. The Flyers were up 36-21 going into the second half, then hit 36 more points the rest of the way in a 72-59 win. Tops in scoring was DaRon Holmes with 18 points and four rebounds.
ANDREW’S FREE UMASS VS DAYTON PREDICTION
I’ll stick with Dayton. This should be a pretty fun game though, as both teams are playing well. The Flyers are coming off a nice road win over a good Davidson team in their last outing. Dayton hit 50 percent from the field with 36 rebounds in that one, but only hit 13 of their 22 free throw attempts (59.1 percent). During this win streak, the Flyers have hit 72 or more points in all eight outings.
As for UMass, they’ve scored 70 or more points in eight straight games (a 6-2 run) so their offense is clicking pretty well these days also. Ultimately I like Dayton to power out the cover here, but the Minutemen should make things interesting. It’ll be a fun game to watch.
