The La Salle Explorers and the UMass Minutemen meet in college basketball action from the Mullins Memorial Center on Wednesday night.
The La Salle Explorers will look to build on their 77-75 win in OT over Rhode Island last time out. Khalil Brantley leads the Explorers in scoring and assists with 15.1 PPG and 3.8 APG while Josh Nickleberry has 11.6 PPG and 3.6 RPG as the only other double-digit scorer for La Salle up to this point in the year. Fousseyni Drame also has a team-high 5.1 RPG to lead the Explorers on the glass this season. As a team, La Salle is averaging 68.7 PPG on 41% shooting from the field, 32.8% from three point range and 69.2% from the foul line this season.
The UMass Minutemen will try to find some consistency after alternating wins and losses in each of their last eight games after an 81-73 loss to George Washington last time out. Noah Fernandes leads UMass in scoring and assists with 13.2 PPG with 4 APG while Matt Cross has 10.7 PPG with 6.1 RPG as the only other double-digit scorer for UMass up to this point in the season. As a team, UMass is averaging 71.1 PPG on 42.3% shooting from the field, 34.7% from behind the arc and 68.1% from the foul line this season.
La Salle is 1-7-2 ATS in their last 10 road games against a team with a home winning percentage above .600 and 2-8-2 ATS in their last 12 road games against a team with a winning home record while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 games overall. UMass is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 home games against a team with a losing road record while the over is 21-5 in their last 26 Wednesday games.
I get the case to be made for either side here, but I’m backing the over. La Salle has found themselves in a lot of high-scoring games as of late, especially on the road, while UMass has had issues defensively as well, allowing 81+ points in three straight games. I think this one ends up closer to the 150 range at the very least so give me the over here.