The Ball State Cardinals and the Indiana State Sycamores meet in college basketball action from the Hulman Center on Saturday afternoon.
The Ball State Cardinals will look to build on their season-opening 109-39 rout of subdivision Earlham last time out. Demarius Jacobs led the Cardinals with 19 points on 7 of 8 shooting while Kaiyem Cleary added 17 points on 6 of 9 shooting. Payton Sparks added 15 points on 6 of 9 shooting with 8 rebounds while Bashir Jihad and Mickey Pearson Jr. each had 13 points with Jihad shooting 5 of 6 from the floor while Pearson Jr. added a team-high 13 rebounds for the double-double. Jalen Windham added 10 points with a team-high 5 assists and 4 steals to finish off the scoring in double figures for Ball State in the win.
The Indiana State Sycamores will hope to build on their 80-53 rout of Wisconsin-Green Bay last time out. Courvoisier McCauley led the Sycamores with 23 points on 8 of 16 shooting with 6 threes and 10 rebounds for the double-double while Trenton Gibson added 18 points on 8 of 9 shooting with a team-high 11 rebounds for his own double-double to make up the pair of double-digit scorers for Indiana State in the win. Cameron Henry, Xavier Bledson and Julian Larry each had a team-high 5 assists as well for Indiana State in the win.
Ball State is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 6-15 ATS in their last 21 road games while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games overall. Indiana State is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games overall and 1-4-1 ATS in their last 5 Saturday games while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 games following a win.
I get the case to be made for either side in this game, but it was Indiana State that looked far more impressive against a much tougher opponent in the opener and side-by-side, just looking at the makeup of these two teams, I’d argue that Indiana State’s flat out the better team. I think the Sycamores win this one at home by 11-13 points at the very least, so I’m taking Indiana State in this one.