The Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers and the Saint Joseph’s Hawks meet in college basketball action from the the Hagan ’85 Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers come into this game after picking up a 117-62 win over subdivision Washington College in their last game. Malik Jefferson leads the Mountaineers with 14.5 PPG along with 5 RPG while Jalen Benjamin has 12.5 PPG and a team-high 5.5 APG to make up the trio of Mountaineers averaging double figures in scoring. As a team, Mount St. Mary’s is averaging 84 PPG on 55.8% shooting from the field, 37.8% from three and 74.1% from the foul line while allowing 76.5 PPG on 47.5% shooting from the field and 36.4% from three this season.
The Saint Joseph’s Hawks will be looking to build on their season-opening 69-67 win over Maryland-Eastern Shore last time out. Taylor Funk led the Hawks with 22 points on 8 of 13 shooting with 6 threes and 7 rebounds while Ejike Obinna had 13 points with 6 rebounds and Jordan Hall had 11 points with a team-high 11 assists and 9 rebounds for a near triple-double, but he settled for a double-double instead. As a team, Saint Joseph’s shot 39.4% from the field, 32.3% from three and 43.8% from the foul line in the victory.
Trends will be updated once they’ve been released.
We will update with a line once it’s been released, but it might be cutting it close to tip-off so I’m leaning Saint Joseph’s here. I never really like backing teams that start the season against subdivision teams, because 95-99% of the time, the opponent is going to be much weaker and they’re just there for the paycheck. Saint Joseph’s didn’t have a tough opener and they scraped by, but I still think the Hawks are the better team. Give me Saint Joseph’s here.