No college hoops handicap yesterday only gave me more time to plug away at our MLB divisional previews. Another free agent found a new home, as the Braves signed Marcel Ozuna to fill Josh Donaldson’s hole. Despite these previews being a work in progress, I just moved on one season win total in the NL West. OK, enough baseball talk because it’s time to dive into the Road Dog Report for 1/22/2020.
First, let’s take a quick minute to recap Monday’s Charlotte 49ers play. I needed every single half-point of the +4.5 to get a much-needed cover out of the 66-62 ODU victory. Charlotte snapped out of their funk with eight second-half three pointers to squeeze their way into the cover. That was one hell of a sweat for a game in which my handicap looked for the Monarchs to barely inch past the 65-point mark. Opposing freshman guards Malik Curry & Jahmir Young pulled their weight, each with 11 points. Backing the 49ers was frustrating for about 37 minutes but the result was what mattered in the end.
(805) Western Carolina @ Mercer -1
Wednesday’s featured Road Dog is the 12-5 Western Carolina Catamounts. They make their way to Macon for the second game of the season with the 8-11 Mercer Bears. WCU rolls in with a 4-2 start in SoCon play, bettering the Bears’ 2-4 league record.
Mercer is 4-3 this season at home where they’ve split a pair of league games. WCU comes into Hawkins Arena with a winning road record of 5-4 and is 2-1 in the Southern Conference. The Catamounts got thumped in their last game by ETSU at home to the tune of 85-66. Conversely, Mercer returns home fresh off of a big 90-75 win at Samford.
These two teams battled in Cullowhee on January 11th to a 79-71 Catamount victory. Mercer guard Djordje Dimitrijevic carried the squad on his shoulders with 34 points. 6’11”, 255-pound Maciej Bender put forth one of his better efforts with 8 points and 13 boards in 33 minutes. Shaking off those individual efforts, WCU took care of business with 9-for-18 shooting from beyond the arc despite 16 turnovers.
Why Should Tonight Be Different?
Mercer obviously gets an edge for returning home, but how do they win tonight against a tough WCU team? Dimitrijevic has been scorching hot in their last five games, averaging just under 25 PPG. His hot hand put up 12-29 shooting from downtown in the Bears’ last two games – both were wins. Mercer must get double-digit production from 6’4″ Ethan Stair if they want to flip the script on WCU. He was a non-factor on the 11th but has delivered at least ten points in 16 of 19 games.
Another 6’4″ guard for the Bears, Jeffrey Gary, has made his mark over the last month. He’s given Mercer a ton of minutes and great shooting inside the arc at a 61.1% rate. Their big forward Maciej Bender is not regularly one of their main contributors, which leads them to be more of a perimeter/jump-shooting team with the sharpshooter Djordje Dimitrijevic.
For Western Carolina, the formula is the Carlos Dotson/Mason Faulkner duo. The Catamounts were without 6’7″, 265-pound Dotson against ETSU, which could help explain why they were beat so handily the other night. He has eight double-doubles in sixteen games this season, and put up 12 points in limited minutes in the Mercer contest. The offense runs through 6’1″ guard Mason Faulkner, who is averaging 18.2 PPG and more than six assists. Matt Halvorsen gives WCU some range as a 45% three-point shooter.
WCU’s key weakness in their six SoCon games was personal fouls. They committed nearly 20 fouls on average, including 25 against Mercer. The Bears’ nemesis is turnovers. Despite shooting a great 48.3% from the field in conference play, their pace and turnover margin have held them to an average of 70 PPG. WCU is averaging 82.3 PPG in conference with less efficient shooting, but they make it to the charity stripe just over 25 times per game. Mercer’s guard play is scary when Dimitrijevic, Stair, and Gary are on fire. However, I love the Dotson/Faulkner duo for the Road Dog and generally rate the Catamounts about seven points better on a neutral court.
On the Money
WCU has delivered for their backers with a 9-6 ATS record that includes 5-4 ATS away from home. They’re on a solid 5-2 ATS run despite falling short as they stepped up in class at ETSU as 4.5-point dogs. The Catamounts are 2-1 ATS as Road Dogs in league play, covering at Furman and VMI but beating Citadel only by 4 points as 6.5-point favorites.
Mercer is a net winner at 9-8 ATS and 4-3 ATS at home. The Bears split a pair of games as home favorites recently, beating VMI by 11 as 6-point favorites but losing to Chattanooga while laying -2. Keep in mind that both of tonight’s teams come off of opposite results though I would say that WCU is a considerable step up from Mercer’s last opponent, Samford.
When these teams met on January 11th, WCU laid 7 points to Mercer and squeezed out the cover by winning 79-71. Tonight’s line of Mercer -1 (or -1.5 as I am now seeing early this morning) implies a 4-point home court advantage and/or overweights the results of each team’s last game. I don’t expect Dimitrijevic to drop 34 points on the Catamounts again. Similarly, WCU will be hard-pressed to repeat their 9-18 performance from downtown.
The 1-point spread essentially says that whoever wins will cover the game. Mercer’s home record is the same as WCU’s mark on the road, so no major discrepancy there. I will stick to my ratings and the fact that Mercer was unsuccessful when stepping up in class against both Chattanooga and Mercer. Dimitrijevic and Stair could certainly go off again for the Bears, but my money is on Western Carolina +1 tonight.
Stay in the Know
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