>Posting on Friday afternoon for Saturday spot for Saturday game...
Saturday, January 11, 2020—784 UT Rio Grande Valley -19 -105 (Heritage)
8 pm EST/5 pm PST—The Vaqueros of UT Rio Grande Valley (5-10 SU, 2-7-1 ATS) gladly welcome Chicago State (4-14 SU, 5-10 ATS) to UTRGV Fieldhouse in Edinburg, TX on
Saturday evening for a WAC matchup and the first meeting between these two teams this season. The two schools will play the return leg at the Jones Convocation Center in Chicago on Saturday, February 8 (1:05 pm ET/10:05 am PT), where under a different venue name, I once witnessed one of the worst concerts of my current Human Life (
Psychedelic Furs).
CSU is now ranked #353 of 353 teams in Division I by
KenPom.com, below SWAC rats Mississippi Valley State (1-13 SU, 4-9 ATS) and Cougars faders are now 4-0 ATS the L4 games in losses to Missouri (91-33, MIZ -33), Utah Valley (94-73, UVU -17), Seattle (86-54, SEA -13½) and
New Mexico St (93-54, NMS -30) on Thursday night in Las Cruces in a game which saw the Cougars score just 2 of the first 24 points (NMS 22 CSU 2). Xavier Johnson (17.6 ppg), Andrew Lewis (12.1 ppg) and Chicago State have lost all four 1H and 2H lines ATS and
are 0-12 ATS combined in all three markets in losses averaging 37.5 ppg.
When these two met here last year, UTRGV ran out to a 36-17 lead at Halftime in an eventual 77-46 rout after a pedestrian 41-29 2H. CSU has traveled much this season and seem to play poorly in the first and last 5 minutes of each Half as the 22-2 scoreline vs he Aggies shows. UTRGV has just 2 ATS Wins, so this Pick is at a much lower level (Yellow) than the NMS (BE$T BET) pick with the Cougars having the potential (15%) to somehow hang with the hosts. This team wins on the Road once every decade and we’ve just started a new one.
UTRGV boasts three guys in double-figure scoring in Jordan Jackson (15.4 ppg), Lesley Varner II (14.3 ppg) and Javon Lee (11.3 ppg) and have six guys who average between 4.3 ppg and 7.9 ppg and have been just waiting for a team like CSU to pad their statistics after facing Creighton, #24 Texas Tech and Oklahoma in Non-Conference play last month. UTRGV have beaten CSU 8 straight times SU by an average of 12 ppg and should roll by between 17 and 32 points here depending on the Cougars energy, effort and Luck. I’ll say it’s 28.
UT Rio Grande Valley 77 Chicago State 49