The Bellarmine Knights and the Duke Blue Devils meet Monday in college basketball action from Cameron Indoor Stadium. Bellarmine is 2-2 on the year and coming off a loss to Clemson. As for Duke, they’re sitting at 3-1 overall. The Blue Devils beat Delaware in their last game. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Bellarmine kicked off the season with a nice showing against Louisville, powering out a 67-66 victory. The Knights took their first loss of the year to Morehead State 62-55, but were able to rebound quickly with an 86-46 win over CU Harrodsburg.
In Friday’s matchup versus Clemson, the Knights faced a 33-28 deficit at the break. Bellarmine trailed 43-38 from there in a 76-66 loss. Tops in scoring was Bash Wieland with 16 points and five rebounds. Juston Betz added 12 points as well.
Over on the Duke side, they had a couple of relatively easy matchups to kick off the season. The Blue Devils beat Jacksonville 71-44 in the opener and USC Upstate 84-38 in game two. Duke took their first loss 69-64 to Kansas on Tuesday.
In the Friday matchup against Delaware, Duke got back in the win column. The Blue Devils were up 42-36 going into the second half and scored 50 more from there in a 92-58 result. Kyle Filipowski topped the team on 18 points and eight rebounds.
PICK: I’m going to stay with Duke. Probably not going near this one, though. The line is pretty thick. The Blue Devils posted a nice blowout win over Delaware in their last game, shooting 50 percent from the floor with 18-of-21 (85.7 percent) from the line, 47 rebounds and 18 team assists. It’s going to be tough for Bellarmine to keep any kind of pace here, even though the Knights did shoot a decent 42.9 percent from the floor against Clemson. I like Duke to run away with this one in the second half.