The Lehigh Mountain Hawks and the Wisconsin Badgers meet Thursday in college basketball action from Kohl Center. Lehigh is currently 4-4 overall and fresh off a loss to UMBC. As for Wisconsin, they’re 8-2 this season and beat Iowa in their last outing. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Lehigh has been a mixed bag so far this year. The Mountain Hawks have wins over Misericordia, Marist, St. Francis PA and Monmouth. The losses otherwise have come to Syracuse, Virginia Tech, MD Eastern Shore and UMBC.
Matched up against UMBC on December 3, Lehigh was drilled in the first half 48-21. The Mountain Hawks got better with 41 second-half points but still lost 88-62. Tyler Whitney-Sidney led the team on 23 points with four rebounds.
Over on the Wisconsin side, they won four straight to open up the year then took a 69-68 loss to Kansas. The Badgers are 4-1 since then, losing to Wake Forest and otherwise beating USC, Marquette, Maryland and Iowa.
In the Iowa game back on Sunday, the Badgers needed overtime but ultimately pulled out a tight win 78-75. Tyler Wahl was tops in scoring with 21 points and seven rebounds. Connor Essegian added 14 points with six rebounds as well.
PICK: I’m going with Wisconsin here. Probably not touching it, though; the line’s a little too thick to mess with. There’s not much chance of Lehigh winning this game obviously; the only question will be the margin of victory. The Mountain Hawks have hit 64 or fewer points in three of their last five games and will likely have trouble keeping pace. On the other hand, Wisconsin has 75 or more points in three of their last four, each against much tougher competition. It’s tough trusting Lehigh to do much of anything here; it looks like a blowout loss on paper.