Rhode Island vs Dayton Prediction 2/26/25 College Basketball Picks Today

The Dayton Flyers and the Rhode Island Rams meet Wednesday in college basketball action from Ryan Center. Here’s a Rhode Island vs Dayton prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best Rhode Island vs Dayton pick.

Dayton Flyers Betting Preview

Dayton has had a couple of choppy spots in their schedule so far this year, but overall they’ve been doing pretty well. The Flyers opened the season on a 10-2 run, taking out St Francis PA, Northwestern, Ball State, Capital, New Mexico State, UConn, Western Michigan, Lehigh, Marquette, and UNLV amid losses to North Carolina and Iowa State. A 1-4 run came next with a win over La Salle among losses to Cincinnati, George Washington, UMass, and George Mason. After wins over Loyola, Duquesne, and Saint Joseph’s, the Flyers hit a 4-3 run with wins over Saint Louis, Davidson, Fordham, and Duquesne among losses to St Bonaventure, VCU, and Loyola. That gives Dayton an 18-9 overall run through their first 27 games of the season.

In the matchup with Loyola on the road last Friday, the Flyers opened up a 34-31 deficit in the first half. Dayton posted a 42-41 run the rest of the way and ended up with a loss of 76-72 in the end. Leading the team in scoring was Nate Santos with 18 points, five rebounds, one assist, and one steal in 29 minutes during the defeat. Enoch Cheeks added 16 points with seven boards and one assist, while Javon Bennett had 11 points with six rebounds in 37 minutes. Amael L’Etang chipped in with 10 points, five rebounds, and three steals in 21 minutes also.

Rhode Island Rams Betting Preview

Over on the Rams’ side, they’ve been unable to win more than two consecutive games since way back in early December. Rhode Island beat Fairfield, Holy Cross, Franklin Pierce, Lafayette, Charleston, Detroit, Texas Arlington, Yale, and Providence during a perfect 9-0 start. Since then it’s been an 8-9 run though, with wins over Central Connecticut, Temple, George Mason, Richmond, Davidson, UMass, St. Bonaventure, and La Salle. The losses otherwise came versus Brown, Duquesne, George Washington, Loyola, VCU, La Salle, Fordham, George Mason, and Saint Louis. In total that gives the Rams a 17-9 record on the season so far.

Matched up against Saint Louis in their Saturday outing, the Rams kicked off the first half with a 38-32 deficit. Rhode Island hit a 43-34 run the rest of the way, falling further behind in an 81-66 loss. Jamarques Lawrence put up 19 points with two rebounds, and David Green added 16 points with five rebounds and one steal. Sebastian Thomas added eight points with nine assists, three rebounds and two steals. Javonte Brown chipped in with seven points, four rebounds, and three assists, while David Fuchs led the bench scoring with seven points.

Why the Rhode Island Rams will win

• The home team has won each of Rhode Island’s last seven games.
• The home team has won the first half in six of Rhode Island’s last seven games.

Why the Dayton Flyers will win

• Dayton has won four of its last five games against Rhode Island.
• Rhode Island has lost the first half in four of its last five games against the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Rhode Island vs Dayton Prediction

I’ll lean toward Dayton here. The Flyers couldn’t quite tame a pretty good Loyola team in their last outing though, so they’ll need a good bounce-back. Dayton shot just 38.7 percent from the field in that loss while giving up 50 percent on the other side. The good news is that the Flyers won the rebounding battle 34-33 and posted just nine turnovers. That shooting percentage has got to come up, though. In three straight games, Dayton has notched at least 72 points though, with 77 or more in two of those outings.

As for Rhode Island, they had some issues with a decent Billikens squad in their last game. The Rams shot well from the field (46 percent) and from 3-point range (10-of-22 for 45.5 percent) but also got out-rebounded 42-29, shot just 10-of-19 (52.6 percent) from the line, and coughed up 14 turnovers for 11 Saint Louis points. Rhode Island had put up 67 or more points in five straight games prior to that, however, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see a higher total here.