Basketball Plays of the Day for March 1: Free NCAA Basketball Picks (Archive)
The Bucknell Bison will look to start off the Patriot League Tournament with a win against the Lafayette Leopards, on the road. Does Bucknell have what it takes? Here is all you need to know for your college basketball picks.
Bucknell Bison vs. Lafayette Leopards
Tuesday, March 01, 2022 – 07:00 PM EST at Kirby Sports Center
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Tonight, there are many conference tournaments beginning. One of those many will be the Patriot League.
The Bucknell Bison will take on the Lafayette Leopards in the first round of the tournament. Lafayette will be the home team in this game, however, in two meetings between these two teams, both games went to overtime and both teams won a game.
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Bucknell is certainly the better offense and for conference tournament games, you’d have to imagine effort and defense all around will be better than in the regular season.
The Bison are shooting an effective field goal percentage of 52.3% while knocking down 36.8% of threes and 50.5% of twos. The Bison won’t earn many offensive rebounds and turn the ball over 19.2% of the time, but at the end of the day, Lafayette is no threat on the defensive end.
Lafayette is allowing teams to shoot 37.6% from deep while also allowing teams to shoot 51.5% from inside. With Bucknell shooting an average amount of threes per game, there’s a good chance that the Bison capitalize on poor perimeter defense from Lafayette in this game.
Lafayette has been able to limit foul shooting, but these conference tournaments see fouls get called a little bit more than usual. No ref wants these types of games to get chippy or out of hand, so quick check fouls and other minimal fouls will likely be called.
Bucknell gets to the line at a reasonable rate and hit 76.6% of foul shots this season.
On the other hand, Lafayette’s offense has struggled in most areas. The Leopards are shooting a 50.4% effective field goal percentage while hitting just 32.6% of threes and 51.7% of shots from inside the arc. Lafayette takes an extremely high rate of threes but, again, is shooting at a below-average rate.
Plus, Lafayette is earning just 21.7% offensive rebounds on the season and rarely gets to the line at all. Again, Bucknell should be able to see the foul line more often and even if fouls are called at a high rate, just know that Bucknell is not aggressive at all on the defensive end.
Bucknell earns just 13.6% turnovers and keeps foul shooting to a minimum. Lafayette is going to get shots up, but it’ll be Bucknell’s job to keep the Leopards away from second-chance opportunities.
The Leopards are only getting 12.4% of points from the foul line this year and shoot just 68% from the charity stripe.
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Prediction
Again, in both meetings, these teams went to overtime in the regular season. This game can go either way, however, Bucknell is +6 at the NCAAB odds.
So let’s take Bucknell to get by in the first round of the Patriot League, with that +6 given by the top-rated sportsbooks.
NCAAB Pick: Bucknell +6 (-115) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.