The North Alabama Lions and the Liberty Flames meet in college basketball action from the Liberty Arena on Thursday night.
The North Alabama Lions will look to bounce back from a third straight loss after a 95-85 OT loss to Stetson last time out. Daniel Ortiz leads the Lions in scoring with 11.9 PPG while KJ Johnson has 11.3 PPG with a team-high 3.3 APG to lead the Lions in the assist department this season. Jacari Lane has 10 PPG to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for North Alabama up to this point in the year. Damian Forrest also has a team-high 6.9 RPG to lead Norht Alabama on the glass so far this season. As a team, North Alabama is averaging 74.9 PPG on 46.4% shooting from the field, 36.8% from three and 67.6% from the foul line this season.
The Liberty Flames will look to bounce back from a 62-59 loss to Eastern Kentucky last time out. Darius McGhee leads the Flames in scoring with 21.1 PPG while Brody Peebles has 12.1 PPG as the only other double-digit scorer for Liberty up to this point in the season. Kyle Rode has 9 PPG with a team-high 4 APG to lead the Flames in assists while Joseph Venzant has a team-high 5.2 RPG to lead the Flames on the glass this season. As a team, Liberty is averaging 75.1 PPG on 47.6% shooting from the field, 39.6% from three and 73.4% from the foul line this season.
North Alabama is 4-11 ATS in their last 15 games against a team with a winning record and 9-19 ATS in their last 28 games overall while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 road games. Liberty is 7-0 ATS in their last 7 home games and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games overall while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games following an ATS loss.
I get the case to be made for either side in this game, but I’m leaning towards Liberty here. The Flames have done a good job walloping conference opponents at home, while North Alabama is inconsistent for the most part, but last time we saw the Lions on the road, they got crushed by a Lipscomb team that lost at Liberty by 29 points. I’ll side with Liberty laying the points here.