The Harvard Crimson and the Maine Black Bears meet Wednesday in college basketball action from Cross Insurance Center. Harvard is 8-5 overall this season. The Crimson lost to Kansas in their last game. As for Maine, they’re sitting at 6-6 on the year following a loss to Ohio State. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Harvard has wins over Morehouse, Elon, Northeastern, Siena, Loyola-IL, Holy Cross, Tufts and UC Irvine so far. The Crimson’s losses have come versus Louisiana, Fordham, UMass, Howard and Kansas.
Matched up against Kansas on Thursday, the Crimson were down 32-23 by the break. Harvard didn’t end up getting closer and fell 68-54. Lead scorer Chris Ledlum posted 17 points and nine boards. Evan Nelson added 10 points as well.
Over on the Maine side, their wins have come versus UMFK, Boston College, Columbia, Central CT State, Merrimack and Augusta. The losses have been to Nebraska, Brown, Fordham, Marist, Akron and Ohio State.
Last Wednesday versus Ohio State, Maine was drilled 47-26 in the first half. The Black Bears were outscored 48-35 from there and lost 95-61 in a blowout. Kellen Tynes was tops in scoring with 19 points and six assists.
PICK: I’ll probably stick with Harvard in this one. Both teams here are coming off rough losses to very good squads. This one should be a much more balanced matchup, though. Harvard shot a tepid 39.6 percent with a 38-29 rebounding deficit versus Kansas in their last game. The Crimson haven’t been lighting up the scoreboard lately with 62 or fewer points in three straight games. That said, Harvard should have some solid opportunities to put up points versus Maine. The Black Bears have given up a combined 182 points over their last pair.