The St. Francis (BK) Terriers and the Merrimack Warriors meet in college basketball action from the Hammel Court on Friday afternoon.

The St. Francis (BK) Terriers will look to build off of an 84-71 win over Merrimack in the first half of the back-to-back last time out. Chauncey Hawkins leads the Terriers in scoring and assists with 16.3 PPG and 4.5 APG while Ty Atson has 15.2 PPG with 6.9 RPG. Unique McLean has 12.7 PPG and a team-high 7.2 RPG and Rob Higgins has 11.1 PPG to make up the group of double-digit scorers for the Terriers so far this season. As a team, St. Francis (BK) is averaging 78.3 PPG on 45% shooting from the field, 34.1% from 3-point range and 73.4% from the foul line while allowing 79.8 PPG on 46.1% shooting from the field and 38.8% from the 3-point line this season.

The Merrimack Warriors will try to bounce back from their loss to the Terriers last time out. Mikey Watkins leads the Warriors in scoring and assists with 12.1 PPG and 4.1 APG with 2.1 steals per game as well while Jordan Minor has 12 PPG and a team-high 8.7 RPG to lead Merrimack on the glass.Ziggy Reid also has 10.2 PPG and 5.4 RPG to make up the trio of double-digit scorers for Merrimack up to this point in the season. As a team, Merrimack is averaging 66.1 PPG on 44.2% shooting from the field, 31.2% from 3-point range and 65% from the foul line while allowing 66.3 PPG on 42.5% shooting from the field and 37.2% from 3-point range this season.

St. Francis (BK) is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 3-7 ATS in their last 10 games against a team with a winning record while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 games following a win. Merrimack is 8-3 ATS in their last 11 games overall and 6-0 aTS in their last 6 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 8-1 in their last 9 Friday games.

I don’t think there’s much of an edge to give up to this side as both teams are evenly matched right now and both have been good in their current spot with the Terriers on the road and Merrimack at home. With that said, the trend this year has been that the team that drops the first game of a doubleheader usually bounces back in the second half and I can’t expect Merrimack to just get swept and steamrolled at home. I’ll lay the bucket with the Warriors in a bounce back effort here.