The Rider Broncs and the Niagara Purple Eagles meet Monday in college basketball action from Gallagher Center. Rider enters this game at 6-6 overall following a win over Canisius. As for Niagara, they’re sitting at 7-5 this year. The Eagles beat Mount St. Mary’s on Saturday. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Rider went just 2-4 over their first six games this year, beating Monmouth and TCNJ. The Broncs are 4-2 since then with victories over Mounts St. Mary’s, Stonehill, Marist and Canisius.
Matched up against Canisius on Saturday, the Broncs took a 33-28 edge into halftime. Rider was outscored 36-33 from there but still won 66-64. Allen Powell led the team on 15 points, while both Mervin James and Tariq Ingraham scored 12 each.
Over on the Niagara side, they were 3-3 through six games this year, beating oCentral AR, Stetson and D’Youville. The Eagles are 4-2 since then with wins over Quinnipiac, Eastern Michigan, Binghamton and Mount St. Mary’s.
In the Saturday game versus Mount St. Mary’s, the Eagles went into halftime up 36-27. Niagara scored another 31 points from there and won it 67-55. Noah Thomasson topped the team with 22 points and three rebounds.
PICK: I’ll probably stick with Niagara. We should have a pretty good matchup overall here, though. The Eagles haven’t exactly been lighting up the scoreboards lately; they’ve hit 67 or fewer points in four of the last five games. That said, Niagara is 4-1 in that stretch and has held opponents to 67 points or fewer in all five of those outings. As for Rider, they’ve got some good scoring outings in the books lately (72 or more points in three of the last five) so it’ll be interesting to see what they can do here.