San Diego State vs UC Riverside College Basketball Picks, Odds, Predictions 11/9/2021

The UC-Riverside Highlanders and the San Diego State Aztecs meet in college basketball action from Viejas Arena on Tuesday night.

The UC-Riverside Highlanders will look to build on a successful season under now second-year head coach Mike Magpayo, finishing 2020-21 at 14-8 including an 8-4 mark in Big West play, finishing above .500 for the first time in the Big West and putting out arguably UC-Riverside’s best season in the 20 years that the Highlanders have been in D-I. The Highlanders took down Hawaii in the quarterfinals before being upended byUC-Irvine in the semis, ending their season. The Highlanders have to replace their two frontcourt starters from last year, but Callum McRae is a good start, coming back after sitting out 2020-21 as a 7-foot tall center that averaged 9.6 PPG and 6.2 RPG in 2019-20. JP Moorman II transfers in from Temple to give the Highlanders a shooting threat alongside McRae but the leader of the team is Zyon Pullin, the returning starting PG who averaged 12.1 PPG and 4.5 APG while also being recognized for how well he took care of the basketball, ranking top-50 in the assist to turnover ratio category. Only time will tell if Magpayo is the real deal at UC-Riverside or if 2020-21 was just a flash in the pan for the Highlanders.

The San Diego State Aztecs come into the 2021-22 season looking to replicate the success from the 2020-21 season, finishing at 23-5 overall and 14-3 in Mountain West conference play to finish with the #1 seed. The Aztecs took down Wyoming, Nevada and Utah State on the way to hoisting the Mountain West tournament title and earning the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid. The Aztecs got the #6 seed in the Midwest region where they were unfortunately bounced by Syracuse in the first round. The Aztecs return some familiar faces in the starting lineup, including backcourt leader Trey Pulliam as well as frontcourt general Nathan Mensah at the center position. The biggest snag though for San Diego State is bringing in a proven scorer in Cal transfer Matt Bradley who can do it all Pull the trigger from outside or slice and dice his way to the rim as well as nail his free throws as an 84% free throw shooter in his career. For the third straight year, it looks like the Mountain West title race goes through San Diego State.

UC-Riverside is 0-5 ATS in their last 5 road games and 2-7 ATS in their last 9 games overall while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 games as an underdog. San Diego State is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games overall and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 home games while the under is 7-1 in their last 8 Tuesday games.

The points with UC-Riverside are worth a look as Mike Magpayo did a great job with the Highlanders last season. However, the Highlanders also struggled on the road and San Diego State is not a place that you want to go when you have road struggles. The Aztecs suffocate you with their defense and the addition of Matt Bradley from Cal gives them another scoring option. This is a big number, but I think San Diego State wins this one by 20+ to start the year.