Game Time: 7:00 PM ET, Monday, January 10th, 2022

Venue: Stabler Arena, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Where to Watch:  No TV

 

DraftKings Sportsbook:  NL

Caesars:  Spread: NL

VegasInsider:  Spread: NL

Holy Cross: 1-2 conf, 3-12 overall (Patriot League)

Lehigh: 2-1 conf, 4-11 overall (Patriot League)

A matchup of Patriot League opponents.  The Patriot league is made up of schools that only produce NBA players by accident.  Sometimes a kid is under recruited out of high school and winds up on a Patriot League team… the most famous of these would be San Antonio Spur legend C David Robinson… and that was 30 something years ago.  The players that go to these schools are students first, their lives contain goals that require hard work and hard study.   As such the conference is divided into two types of teams… Traditionally good teams.. And traditional doormats.  The four traditional quality teams in the Patriot League are Navy, Army, Loyola, and Boston University.. The reason these schools tend to be better is their student body is made up from a wider pool of kids.  Army and Navy kids are from anywhere, but usually are kids that are preparing for a career in the military and they are usually kids from a military family… that wide net catches a few good basketball players along the way.  Loyola is located near basketball mad Baltimore Maryland… they get kids who may not have been their high school’s star (most likely weren’t) but still played high level basketball… and Boston University has the benefit of being in Boston, another fair sized city with a rich basketball tradition…. One thing we do know is Holy Cross rarely stumbles into a great college basketball player in Worcester, New York and Lehigh would have to search a lot of barns to find a basketball recruit in rural Bethlehem Pennsylvania.  The result is a league where a handful of teams are competitive with the rest of D1 college basketball and the rest of the teams will only be competitive with each other.  This provides great betting opportunities… because in a battle of losing teams the numbers tend to be pretty accurate when pointing to an obvious winner.

The Holy Cross Crusaders won their last game against Lafayette 79-74.  They had lost their previous 8 games in a row.  In that 8-game losing stretch they got two wins against the spread against the Loyola Greyhounds where the spread was 10.5 and the loss was 9 points… and against the Harvard Crimson which was an 8 point loss with a 16.5 point spread.  Outside of that they are losing against the spread a lot.  They then ran into the Army Black Knights and lost 77-55. (also a loss ATS).  

The Lehigh Mountain Hawks got a nice bump when conference play began.  They beat the American University Eagles on New Year’s Day and the Colgate Raiders a couple days later to give them two conference wins, both wins were also wins ATS.  

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Holy Cross is 3-12 on the season, but 4-9 ATS.  They have logged 6 Overs and 7 Unders.  They are a sad 0-7 in road games.

Lehigh is 4-11 on the season, but 6-8 ATS.  They have notched 7 Overs and 7 Unders.  They are 3-4 in home games.

Holy Cross is 296th in the nation in scoring with 66.3 ppg, 279th in rebounds with 30.8 per game, and 346th in AST/TO ratio with 0.7.  Holy Cross is really a turnover machine… they give the ball away more often than they register an assist.  That is a recipe for losing to anybody. They are shooting below average in every shooting category with 43% FG, 35.2% 3PT, and 68.7% FT.   Holy Cross defense allows 71.5 ppg

Lehigh is 318th in scoring with 64.2 ppg, 313th in rebounds with 29.5 per, and 306th in AST/TO ratio with 0.8.  Also a terrible AST/TO ratio.  The shooting numbers are slightly worse if you can believe it.  42.6% FG, 31.2 3PT%, and 71.9% FT… They have to hope the entire game is a free throw contest.  They should actually force that action.  Lehigh defense allows 77 ppg.

Our prediction for Monday, January 10th is…  Lehigh 74 - Holy Cross 70

The numbers are so close and these teams are equally terrible… However Holy Cross has a real inability to perform on the road.  They lose on the road and they fail to cover the spread mostly.  You could discount home court advantage in an uneven matchup… but not in an even matchup of terrible teams.  The bad road habits will be on full display for Holy Cross… Lehigh should win what will most likely be a close spread if not a PK when the lines are posted.

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Lehigh is 6-5 ATS versus Holy Cross since 1997.

Holy Cross is 4-0 ATS at Lehigh since 1997.

All 4 games between these two teams have gone OVER the last 3 seasons.

Holy Cross: No injuries to report

Lehigh: No injuries to report

Holy Cross: G Bo Montgomery, G Kyrell Luc, G Judson Martindale, F Gerrale Gates, F Louth-M Coulibaly

Lehigh: G Evan Taylor, G keith Higgins Jr, G Tyler Whitney-Sidney, F Jeameril Wilson, C Nic Lynch

Holy Cross

Points: Gerrale Gates 13.3

Assists: Kyrell Luc 2.0

Rebounds: Gerrale Gates 7.6

Steals: Kyrell Luc 1.5

Blocks: Louth-M Coulibaly 0.8

Lehigh

Points: Evan Taylor 12.8

Assists: Ben Knotsman 2.3

Rebounds: Evan Taylor 5.7

Steals: Marques Wilson 1.2

Blocks: Dominic Parolin 1.0

Holy Cross: Brett Nelson. Coach Nelson took the Holy Cross head coaching job in 2019.  He has so far managed a 10-50 record.  If he stays much longer he will never be able to find a job that will help him dig his way out of a career losing record.  

Lehigh:  Brett Reed.  Coach Reed has coached Lehigh since 2007 and has an overall record of 237-200 in his career.  Coach Reed has a PHD in instructional technology… so should i call him Coach Doctor or Doctor Coach…. I’m gonna go with Dr. Coach.