The Hampton Pirates and the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles meet in college basketball action from the UVI Sports & Fitness Center on Saturday.
Hampton Blown Out By Kent State
The Hampton Pirates will look to rebound from a 100-62 loss at the hands of Kent State in their last matchup. Entering Friday, Kyrese Mullen leads the Pirates in scoring and rebounding with 18.7 PPG and 9.7 RPG while Tedrick Wilcox has 17 PPG with 5.7 RPG as the only other double-digit scorer for Hampton up to this point in the year. Dan Banister Jr. has 9.7 PPG while Ford Cooper has 7.7 PPG with 3.3 RPG and a team-high 3.3 APG to lead the Pirates in the assist column so far this season. As a team, Hampton is averaging 85.7 PPG on 50.5% shooting from the field, 30% from three and 66.1% from the foul line this season.
Florida Gulf Coast Falls To Missouri State
The Florida Gulf Coast Eagles will be looking to rebound from a 70-61 loss to Missouri State last time out. Going into Friday’s matchup, Zach Anderson leads FGCU in scoring and rebounding with 13 PPG with 6 RPG while Keeshawn Kellman has 11.3 PPG with 5.3 RPG as the only other double-digit scorer for the Eagles up to this point in the year. Chase Johnston has 9.7 PPG while Isaiah Thompson has 9 PPG. Rahmir Barno also has a team-high 3.7 APG to lead the Eagles in assists so far this season. As a team, Florida Gulf Coast is averaging 72.3 PPG on 44.3% shooting from the field, 29.2% from three and 64.4% from the foul line this season.
Chris’ Pick
I’m looking at the over here. These are two teams that have been inefficient on the defensive end of the floor this season and I’m not expecting that to change here. Hampton will try to push the pace as they’re just outside of the top-10 in tempo, but Florida Gulf Coast’s offense has been fairly effective in the early going this season. Give me the over in this one.
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg