Villanova vs La Salle 11/7/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The La Salle Explorers and Villanova Wildcats meet Monday in college basketball action at the Finneran Pavilion. The La Salle Explorers are coming off an 11-win season. The Villanova Wildcats are coming off a 30-win season.

The La Salle Explorers enter the Fran Dunphy coaching era. Josh Nickelberry returns after averaging 11.2 points and 2.8 rebounds, while Jhamir Brickus averaged 8.9 points and 3.3 assists. Anwar Gill played in 545 minutes last season, and Khalil Brantley averaged 2.3 rebounds. The La Salle Explorers say goodbye to their top-two players in Clifton Moore and Jack Clark, but they have a lot of their depth coming back. Nickelberry is coming off his best season yet, and Gill and others are experienced role players. La Salle probably lacks the top talent to make a legit run in the A-10, but there’s enough here to be a respectable club. 

The Villanova Wildcats enter the Kyle Neptune coaching era. Justin Moore returns after averaging 14.8 points and 4.8 rebounds, while Caleb Daniels averaged 10.3 points and 3.8 rebounds. Brandon Slater played in over 1,100 minutes last season, and Eric Dixon averaged 6.4 rebounds. Villanova loses its star in Collin Gillespie, but it returns the majority of the remainder of the roster. Villanova also adds three highly recruited players in Cameron Whitmore, Mark Armstrong and Brendan Housen. It’s a new era of Villanova basketball with Jay Wright no longer around, but this is still a very good team in the Big East.

The Explorers are 1-5-1 ATS in their last 7 road games and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall. The Wildcats are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 home games and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall. The under is 5-1 in Explorers last 6 overall. The under is 6-2 in Wildcats last 8 overall. The underdog is 4-1 ATS in the last 5 meetings. The road team is 4-1 ATS in the last 5 meetings.

The Villanova Wildcats are the more talented team, obviously, and have the ability to blow the doors off here, but they also have some key guys to replace and a new head coach. The La Salle Explorers have a new coach as well, but they’re coming off an OK season and have a lot of key role players returning. This is also a bigger game for La Salle in terms of motivation. Thick line. I’ll grab the points.