Loyola Marymount vs Chattanooga College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions 11/9/2021

The Chattanooga Mocs and the Loyola Marymount Lions meet in college basketball action from Gersten Pavilion on Tuesday night.

The Chattanooga Mocs come into this season looking to build off of a successful 2020-21 season, finishing at 18-8 overall, including 9-7 in SoCon conference play to finish in 4^th. The Mocs stay in the conference tournament was brief though, as East Tennessee State took out the Mocs in the quarterfinals. The Mocs return the backcourt duo of David Jean-Baptiste (16.1 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 2.5 APG) and Malachi Smith (16.8 PPG, 8.8 RPG, 3.3 APG), which is heralded as one of, if not the best in the SoCon this coming season. Darius Banks had 11.2 PPG for the Mocs with 4 RPG and KC Hankton had 8.7 PPG with 5.5 RPG. Perhaps the most interesting get is former Kansas Jayhawk Silvio De Sousa who missed last season with off-court issues. If he’s on his game though, De Sousa could be all-SoCon. The pieces are all there for Chattanooga to win their first SoCon title since 2016, but it’s just a matter of putting it all together.

The Loyola Marymount Lions come into this one looking to take the next step after finishing 13-9 overall including 7-5 in conference play to finish in 3^rd. but ending up with the #5 seed in the conference tournament. The Lions took out San Francisco in the second round before being ousted by Saint Mary’s in the quarterfinals. The Lions retain a large chunk of last year’s team including leading scorer and rebounder Eli Scott (18 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 3.6 APG) while Dameane Douglas (13.5 PPG, 7.3 RPG) and Keli Leaupepe (10.5 PPG, 4.8 RPG) also return. The Lions did well raiding the transfer portal, bringing in Cam Shelton (19.2 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 4.2 APG) from Northern Arizona as well as Alex Merkviladze (10 PPG, 7 RPG) from CSU-Northridge. Kwane Marble (9.5 PPG, 4.1 RPG) makes the jump from Wyoming as well to help LMU with their depth. This may be the best chance the Lions have at getting to the NCAA tournament in a long time. They’ll likely have to go the at-large route because the top-end of the WCC is tough as tough can be, but if the shooting improves, so will the results and I think LMU is more than capable of doing that this season.

Chattanooga is 21-10-1 ATS in their last 32 games overall and 20-6 ATS in their last 26 road games while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 Tuesday games. Loyola Marymount is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games overall and 9-4 ATS in their last 13 games as a favorite while the over is 5-0-1 in their last 6 home games.

This is an intriguing matchup as there are just so many solid pieces here as well as transfers across the board for both teams. With that said, I’m leaning towards the over as I can just see this being a track meet from the opening tip. I could easily see a game in the 150s, so give me the over.