The UMass Minutemen and the St. Bonaventure Bonnies meet Saturday in college basketball action from Reilly Center. UMass is 9-3 so far this season. The Minutemen beat Dartmouth in their last appearance. As for St. Bonaventure, they’re 6-7 on the year and lost to Northern Iowa in their most recent game. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
UMass has losses to Towson, UMass Lowell and North Texas so far this season. The wins have come versus Central CT State, Colorado, Murray State, Charlotte, South Florida, Harvard, Albany, Hofstra and Dartmouth.
Last Tuesday versus Dartmouth, the Minutemen trialed 35-28 by halftime. UMass rallied in the second half with 40 points and won the comeback 68-57. TJ Weeks was the top team scorer on 19 points and five rebounds.
Over on the St. Bonaventure side, they went 4-2 over their first six games this year with losses to Canisius and SD State. The Bonnies are just 2-5 since then with losses to Buffalo, Iona, FGCU, Siena and Northern Iowa.
Matched up against Northern Iowa, the Bonnies scored just 22 points in the first half. St. Bonaventure didn’t end up getting closer in the second and lost 62-52. Both Chad Venning and Kyrell Luc scored a team-high 12 points.
PICK: I’ll probably stay with UMass. Also probably not touching this one. The Minutemen started slow against a struggling Dartmouth team in their last outing but ended up being okay. UMass has been scoring pretty well lately with 68 or more points in six of their last seven outings. As for St. Bonaventure, they’ve failed to hit 59 points in three of their last four and have given up points at a pretty solid clip lately too. I don’t see the Bonnies getting the victory here, but it should be a competitive matchup.