The Southern Miss Golden Eagles and the East Carolina Pirates meet Tuesday in college basketball action from Minges Coliseum. Southern Miss is 4-7 so far this year. The Eagles lost to LA-Monroe in their last game. As for the Pirates, they’re 8-3 on the season and coming off a loss to Liberty. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Southern Miss went 4-2 over their first six games this year, falling to Louisiana and TCU along the way. Since then it’s been a five-game losing streak to Montana, South Alabama, Southern Illinois, Jacksonville and LA-Monroe, however.
In the Saturday game versus LA-Monroe, the Eagles had a tie game going into the half but were outscored 43-34 in the second in a 74-65 defeat. Rashad Bolden topped the team on 19 points with four rebounds and three assists.
Over on the East Carolina side, they went 4-2 in their first six as well, with losses to Oklahoma and Davidson. The Pirates hit a win streak versus Coppin State, Old Dominion, Gardner-Webb and NC A&T before another loss to Liberty.
Matched up against Liberty last Friday, the Pirates had a three-point halftime lead. East Carolina was outscored 42-29 from there in a 74-64 loss. Vance Jackson doubled up on 15 points and 10 rebounds, while Tristen Newton added 15 points of his own.
ECU is 2-12 ATS in their last 14 after a straight-up loss and 4-12 ATS in their last 16 after an ATS loss. The under is 5-1 in the Pirates’ last six Tuesday games.
Meanwhile, the Eagles are 1-6-1 ATS in their last eight Tuesday games and 0-4 ATS in their last four road games. The over is 4-1-1 in Southern Miss’ last six road games.
PICK: I’m going to stick with East Carolina in this one. The Pirates probably should have beaten Liberty in their last game, but ultimately shot a tepid 37.9 percent from the floor and 5-of-19 (26.3 percent) from 3-point range. Otherwise ECU still looked decent statistically in that one—outside of the 15 turnovers.
As for Southern Miss, they’ve had a hard time scoring lately and have been at 65 points or fewer in each of their last six games. If the Eagles don’t get off to a good start here I don’t think they’ll be able to match the pace.