The Southern Miss Golden Eagles and the Florida Atlantic Owls meet Wednesday in Conference USA Tournament college basketball action from Ford Center. Southern Miss is 7-25 on the season. The Eagles beat UTSA in tournament action Tuesday. As for Florida Atlantic, they’re 18-13 this year and coming off a win over Florida International. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Southern Miss started out the season at 4-2, but they would win just two games from November 26 to March 8. One of the Eagles’ wins in that time was versus UTSA. Southern Miss had a rematch with the Roadrunners in tournament activity Tuesday.
In the Tuesday conference matchup versus UTSA, the Eagles were down 25-30 at the break. Southern Miss surged on a 42-34 run in the second for a comeback 67-64 win. Tyler Stevenson led the team on 22 points and seven rebounds.
Over on the Florida Atlantic side, they started the year out on a spotty 8-8 run, then hit a nice 7-1 stretch in January/February. The Owls would then lose four straight games, but they’ve taken the last three over Charlotte and FIU (twice).
In the Saturday rematch versus Florida International, the Owls hit a nice 50-29 first-half run. Florida Atlantic was outscored 34-47 the rest of the way but still won 84-76. Leading scorer Alijah Martin put up 34 points with six rebounds in the victory.
FAU is 4-1 ATS in their last five neutral-site games and 7-19 ATS in their last 26 Wednesday games. Meanwhile, the Eagles are 4-0 ATS in their last four overall and 4-1 ATS in their last five after an ATS win.
PICK: I suppose I’m going to stick with Florida Atlantic. The Owls are on a nice scoring run over these last three games; they’ve hit 71 or more in each. That’s a nice bounce-back from failing to hit 70 points in three of four (all losses).
As for Southern Miss, they lost 84-57 on the road February 5 the last time these teams met up. The Tuesday win over UTSA was a nice one—and they’ve been scoring well over the last four games—but I don’t think the Eagles have the gas to keep up here.