We have a Friday Free Pick for everyone tonight as we look at a huge slate of games. Early season Friday night college hoops with tournaments and TV networks looking to dodge football Saturdays have loaded us up this evening. Overall record here early on the year is 13-15 dropping 4.36 Units. Free pick record here at TheOddsbreakers.com is 2-0 on College Hoops this season. Tonight we have 7 selections on the card so far, and I am still looking at some late night KNAction.
My free play tonight takes us to Johnson City, Tennessee to preview the East Tennessee State Buccaneers (1-2) taking on the Davidson Wildcats (7-5). The current line sits at Davidson -6.5 with the over/under checking in at 137.
It’s a new sheriff in town for the Bucs as new head coach Brooks Savage makes his return to ETSU. He comes from the Steve Forbes coaching tree who reigned at ETSU from 2016-2020. Savage has spent the last few seasons at Wake Forest. I look for him to switch the gameplan for the Bucs from slow and plodding with tough D, to a more wide open style of play with a high tempo offense. We haven’t really seen that come to fruition yet, but after their showing the last two games he will need to try and shake some things up. In their last game they went 31% from the field against Butler and went 4 for 24 from distance. Overall continuity has been a problem in their three games so far as this roster features four freshman and seven transfers. I still think they need some time to gel. They also are going to struggle with teams with size on the inside as they only have two players in their rotation so far taller than 6’6″. Junior Guard Quimari Peterson had a breakout game scoring 31 points against Elon, but no one else has really stepped up yet for this team.
Matt Mckillop enters his second head coaching season at Davidson after having a rebuild year in 2022-2023. They enter the year having only lost three players off the roster from last season and have had some early season success at the 2023 Asheville Championship going 1-1, winning a three-point game over Maryland (64-61) and dropping a three-point contest to Clemson (68-65). Angelo Brizzi, a Villanova transfer has been their leader so far on both ends of the court averaging over 10 points a game so far to go along with 2.7 assists and steals per game to only 1.3 turnovers a contest. Freshman Bobby Durkin has also played a huge role already and is shooting over 50% from the floor and from distance. Durkin is a match-up nightmare at the wing spot running 6’7″ with the ability to finish anywhere. This team also benefits from some great size on the inside and at some of their guard rotations.
With East Tennessee State coming off the blowout by Butler they should be motivated in their home opener and come out strong. That being said the continuity and superior athleticism and size on this Davidson squad is substantial. Davidson has held two top 100 Kenpom offenses to under 70 points already and I think they can control the game flow in this one and use a superior half court edge to slowly pummel the Bucs into submission. This game opened at Davidson -5 and got hammered up to 8.5 and then bet back down here to 6.5. I think the initial read was correct and would play the Wildcats back up to 7.5 here. I also have a strong lean to the under.
Take Davidson -6.5 for 2 Units
