excerpt:
...The Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders will be looking to build on their mini 2-game winning streak that coincides with their first 2 conference wins. The Blue Raiders narrowly escaped with an 80-77 victory over Rice on Thursday night, behind a team-high 20 points on 7 of 13 shooting with a pair of triples in addition to a team-high 7 rebounds from Reggie Upshaw. Leading scorer this season, JaCorey Williams came 2nd with 19 points on 8 of 17 from the floor with 5 assists. Giddy Potts finished the night in 3rd with 17 points ok 6 of 12 from the floor with 3 threes of his own. Williams leads Middle Tennessee with an average of 17.4 points and 7.1 rebounds per game this season, while Reggie Upshaw is the team leader in the assist column with 3.2 assists per game this season. As a team, Middle Tennessee is scoring 73.3 points per game on 48% shooting from the field, 37.4% from behind the arc and 63.9% from the foul line this season.
North Texas could use a win to snap a 4-game losing streak, including their first 3 conference games this year, sitting the Mean Green at the bottom of C-USA. North Texas dropped their last outing Thursday night to UAB by a narrow 54-52 final. J-Mychal Reese led all North Texas scorers with 16 points on 7 of 11 shooting from the field, while Jeremy Combs came 2nd with 10 points in addition to 3 steals and a share of the game-high with 6 rebounds joining Reese as the only pair of North Texas players to notch double figures scoring in the loss. Derail Green added 3 steals of his own while Shane Temara added 3 blocks and Rickey Brice Jr. chipped in 6 rebounds of his own. Deckie Johnson did not play, but still leads the team with 9.6 points per game, while Brice Jr. leads the team in rebounding with 4.9 rebounds per game and Reese leads the team in assists with 3.8 helpers per game this season. As a team, North Texas is scoring 67.4 points per game on 40.9% shooting from the field, 30% from behind the arc and 69.9% from the foul line.
Middle Tennessee is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 road games and 5-0 ATS in their last 5 conference matchups while the under is 10-3 in their last 13 games overall. North Texas is 8-3 ATS in their last 11 home games and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games following a loss while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 conference matchups. The home team is 6-1 ATS in the last 7 meetings.
This is a lot of points to lay on the road, and while all of the trends point to North Texas, the Mean Green can barely put points on the board, as shown in their loss to UAB. Middle Tennessee is lighting it up right now and should be able to take care of North Texas rather easily......
