The Detroit Titans and the Wyoming Cowboys meet in college basketball action from the Arena-Auditorium on Wednesday night.
The Detroit Titans will look to build on a fairly successful 2020-21 season, finishing 12-10 overall, including 10-6 in Horizon League play to finish in 3rd, but a tiebreaker gave Detroit the 5th seed in the Horizon League Tournament. The Titans’ stay in the tournament was cut short, as they were upset by Northern Kentucky in the quarterfinals. The Titans bring back the catalyst of their offense from last season, leading scorer Antoine Davis, who had 24 PPG and 4.6 APG last season. Noah Waterman also returns as the only other double-digit scorer for Detroit, logging 11.9 PPG and 4.5 RPG. Matt Johnson had 8.5 PPG and 3.7 RPG, but the Titans are hoping that the addition of transfers like D.J. Harvey (6.3 PPG, 2.9 RPG) from Vanderbilt, Jordan Phillips (7.3 PPG, 2.7 RPG) from UT-Arlington, Kevin McAdoo (6 PPG) from Bradley and Prince Oduro (2.3 PPG, 2.1 RPG) from USF will help bolster the rotation going forward. The key to a successful season will be building around Davis as he’s been a one-man show for the Titans in the last couple of seasons.
The Wyoming Cowboys come into the 2021-22 season after a decent 2020-21 season, finishing 14-11 with a 7-9 mark in Mountain West conference play. Wyoming took down San Jose State in the first round as the #8 seed before falling to eventual champion San Diego State in the quarterfinals by just three points. The Cowboys bring back a pair of double-digit scorers, including their top player, Hunter Maldonado, who had 12.5 PPG and 6.8 RPG last season. Graham Ike also has 11.2 PPG and 5.4 RPG while Xavier DuSell had 9.7 PPG and Kenny Foster added 9.1 PPG and 3.6 RPG last season. There’s concern that Maldonado can only do so much on his own and it’s just a matter of the guys around him taking the next step as well.
Detroit is 8-3 ATS in their last 11 road games and 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games as a road underdog while the over is 12-3-1 in their last 16 games as an underdog. Wyoming is 6-0 ATS in their last 6 games overall and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 home games while the over is 6-1 in their last 7 games as a favorite.
I get the case that could be made for Wyoming at home as the Mountain West is a gauntlet and the Cowboys did handle themselves fairly well. However, while Detroit has looked like a one man show behind Davis, these are two teams that are almost even when you put them side-by-side against each other and I think this ends up being a competitive game that comes down to the final bucket. If that’s the case, we’ll be happy to have the points with Detroit in our back pocket.