The UNC Greensboro Spartans and the UMass Minutemen meet Friday in college basketball action from McArthur Center. UNC Greensboro played Green Bay in their last outing on Thursday. In that one the Spartans eked out a two-point win. As for UMass, they’re fresh off a game against Weber State. The Minutemen ended up falling by 15 points. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
UNC Greensboro got off to a nice start this year with three straight wins. The Spartans took out NC A&T 57-53 in their opener, then eked out a tight win over Northern Kentucky 70-69. Game three was a 55-48 victory over Coppin State back on Monday.
In Thursday’s matchup against Green Bay, UNC Greensboro trailed 34-27 at the break but surged in the second half toward a 60-58 win. Mohammed Abdulsalam and Kaleb Hunter each scored 10 points with a combined six rebounds.
Over on the UMass side, they came out of their first three games at 2-1 with a pair of solid wins. The Minutemen took out UMBC in the opener 77-60 and drilled Penn State 81-56 in game three. In the middle was a somewhat ugly 91-71 loss to Yale.
In Thursday’s game versus Weber State, the Minutemen gave up 52 points in the second half during an 88-73 loss. Noah Fernandes put up 21 points with five assists and three rebounds to lead the team.
UNCG is 9-1-1 ATS in their last 11 Friday games and 15-7 ATS in their last 22 overall. The over is 5-2 in the Spartans’ last seven Friday games.
Meanwhile, the Minutemen are 4-9 ATS in their last 13 Friday games and 2-5 ATS in their last seven neutral-site games. The over is 23-6 in UMass’ last 29 Friday games.
PICK: I’m going to try UNC Greensboro here. Thursday’s win wasn’t a pretty one, but the Spartans certainly got the job done. UNCG shot 40 percent from the field in the win, and were really helped out by a 39-27 rebounding advantage.
As for UMass, they shot a solid 45.2 percent in their Thursday game, but also gave up 11-of-21 (52.4 percent) and were out-rebounded 33-29. This is probably going to be a slower-paced game and I don’t know if the Minutemen will succeed cover-wise in that type of setting.