The Western Michigan Broncos and the Ohio Bobcats meet in college basketball MAC-tion from the Ohio Convocation Center on Tuesday night.
The Western Michigan Broncos will look to rebound from a 79-68 loss to Akron in their last matchup. B. Artis White leads the Broncos in scoring and assists with 14.8 PPG and 2.9 APG while Greg Lee has 10.8 PPG and a team-high 7.1 RPG to make up the pair of double-digit scorers for WMU coming into this game. Titus Wright has 9.9 PPG with 5.7 RPG as well for the Broncos this season. As a team, Western Michigan is averaging 63.5 PPG on 43.7% shooting from the field, 32% from 3-point range and 65.2% from the foul line while allowing 70.5 PPG on 42.9% shooting from the field and 31.1% from 3-point range this season.
The Ohio Bobcats will try to build off of an 85-77 win over Ball State in their last matchup. Jason Preston leads the Bobcats in scoring and assists with 17.6 PPG and 8.1 APG while also posting 6.4 RPG this season while Doug Wilson III has 15.1 PPG and 7.5 RPG to lead Ohio on the glass this season. Ben Vander Plas has 13.4 PPG and 5.5 RPG and Ben Roderick has 11.3 PPG to make up the group of double-digit scorers for Ohio coming into this matchup with WMU. As a team, Ohio is averaging 80.1 PPG on 48.1% shooting from the field, 36.4% from behind the arc and 68.9% from the foul line while allowing 74.6 PPG on 45.8% shooting from the field and 36.5% from 3-point range this season.
Western Michigan is 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games following a loss while the over is 15-7 in their last 22 Tuesday games. Ohio is 10-3 ATS in their last 13 home games and 13-6 ATS in their last 19 games overall while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 games following a win. The home team is 21-8 ATS in the last 29 meetings between these two teams.
I think the case that you could make for the Broncos is that Western Michigan’s five-game losing streak has seen the Broncos face five of the better teams in the MAC, so there’s not much shame in taking the losses. The problem is that Ohio is the better team here as well and have looked like a much-improved team with Jason Preston back to being healthy and in the lineup. I just think this is another bad spot for Western Michigan and I’ll back them when I start to see signs of life from WMU. I’ll lay the points with Ohio in this spot.