St. Bonaventure vs. Richmond NCAA Basketball Betting Analysis and Free Pick (Archive)
The teams picked first and second in the preseason Atlantic 10 poll will meet in Richmond on Friday night. Things haven’t gone quite as expected for St. Bonaventure and Richmond.
Both teams have plenty of work to do if they’re going to reach preseason expectations. Here are the NCAAB odds for this matchup.
St. Bonaventure Bonnies vs. Richmond Spiders
Friday, February 04, 2022 – 06:00 PM EST at Robins Center
The Bonnies and Spiders are both one game over .500 in the A-10 and three games out of first place. St. Bonaventure is in sixth place at 12-6, 4-3 in the league. The Bonnies opened the season winning eight of nine, including non-conference victories over Boise State, Clemson and Marquette.
Since then, Bona has lost five of eight games to fall on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble.
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Richmond is behind St. Bonaventure in the Atlantic 10, sitting in seventh place at 14-8, 5-4 in the league. The Spiders have won four of the last five to turn around a 10-7, 1-3 start but still have work to do to approach a tourney bid.
Shooting Out of a Slump
St. Bonaventure’s second-leading scorer, senior guard Jaren Holmes, has been battling a two-week slump. In mid-January, Holmes was averaging 16.0 ppg, shooting .415 from the field and .345 from three.
Over the next three games (two of those losses for the Bonnies), Holmes hit just 12 of his 42 shots for a .286 percentage. That included a 1-of-12 outing at Dayton and a 4-of-15 night at George Mason.
Things appeared to be back on track when Holmes hit seven of eight shots in a win over St. Joseph’s, but in Tuesday’s loss to Davidson, he hit just one of 10 shots from the field.
He has averaged just 12.8 ppg over the last five and shot 60 points below his season average up to that point. He’s been even worse from three, hitting just one of his 16 attempts over the last five games.
On the Road
Part of the problem may be that Bona has played three of the five games on the road. Holmes is shooting .324 away from home this season and .309 in true road games, compared to .462 on his home court.
“I’m not really happy with the way I’m playing right now,” Holmes said. “(I’m) just trying to take good shots, get in the offense, and attack downhill.”
Bona has four other double-digit scorers who can pick up for the slumping Holmes, led by Jalen Adaway. The senior guard has topped 20 points in each of the last two games, doubling his number of 20-point games for the season.
Kyle Lofton, Dominick Welch and Osun Osunniyi round out an all-senior starting lineup that’s all averaging double figures.
One small red flag: Adaway played against Davidson after being a game-time decision due to a stomach bug. Those are the kind of things that often spread quickly through a team at this time of year.
The Bona coaches haven’t said anything about the team’s health, but it will be something to watch, especially from a team that relies so heavily on its five starters.
Heating up From Outside
Richmond appeared to snap out of a three-point shooting slump in its last game. The Spiders entered Tuesday’s game at Duquesne hitting 14 of their last 70 from outside the arc for a .200 shooting percentage. They then lit up Duquesne for a 13-of-24 night. It was Richmond’s best night against an A-10 opponent in three years.
Richmond is led by Tyler Burton, the only A-10 player in the top six in the league in both scoring and rebounding. Jacob Gilyard leads the nation in steals and has led the league in that category each of the last two years. He is the all-time steals leader in Division I history.
The Pick
This will be a clash of styles as Bona will try to slow things down. The Bonnies play at the No. 295 tempo in the nation. While it’s unlikely that Richmond will hit half of its outside shots like it did last game, the Spiders will get a boost from a St. Bonaventure perimeter defense that ranks No. 285 in the country.
Look for Richmond to pull away in a home win for your NCAAB picks tonight.
NCAAB Pick: Richmond -3 (-110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline)
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