Nicholls State vs. Sam Houston State
Free Pick: Sam Houston State -10 -110 odds
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Playing these small conference games can give us a lot of value as the linesmakers are simply making their best guesses for these numbers. We are going with Sam Houston St. tonight in the first round of the Southland Conference Tournament. This line may seem big but it is big for a reason as the top seed in this tournament pretty much cruised through the conference slate with a 14-2 record and both of those losses came in overtime in true road games. The last loss happened to come in the final game of the season but don’t read too much into that as a momentum killer as the Bearkats had nothing on the line as the number one seed in the tournament was already locked up. This team is solid on both ends of the floor as offensively, Sam Houston St. finished the season with the highest scoring offense in the Southland, averaging 81.8 ppg and it betted that with a 99 ppg average over its last three games. The Bearkats led the country in assists and its assist/turnover ratio is an incredible 1.56, fourth in the nation. Defensively, this is where they have shown steady improvement after some rough non-conference games. Guard play is extremely important this time of year and the Bearkats backcourt is a strength as proven by those assist numbers and ratios. The Bearcats are ranked 16th in the latest mid-major top 25 poll. They take on Nicholls St. who snuck into the tournament thanks to winning its final two games of the regular season and grabbing the final spot. The Colonels finished 7-9 in the conference but four of those wins came against teams that did not qualify for the postseason and the three that did were all by close margins. This team struggles on defense and that is a problem in this matchup. The Colonels defense allowed a league-worst 52.6 percent shooting from league opponents. Even though they went 4-1 down the stretch and improved that porous defense, the shooting percentage allowed was still 47.2 percent over those final five games and I consider that pretty weak still. The first meeting was a close one as Sam Houston St. snuck out with a six-point victory but that game was as in Thibodaux and was a complete aberration for the Bearkats. They committed an uncharacteristic 20 turnovers and that led to 11 more shot attempts for the Colonels. Despite this, Sam Houston outshot Nicholls St. 59.5 percent to 43.8 percent and if not for the miscues that led to a 17-4 Colonels run, it would have been a blowout. Sam Houston is 2-0 ATS in its two lined games this season, winning and covering against Oral Roberts and Rider. Nicholls St. meanwhile went 1-4 ATS with some ugly blowouts. 3* Sam Houston St. Bearkats

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