Seton Hall vs Providence Odds & Prediction: Bet This Big East Underdog

Seton Hall vs Providence Odds

Saturday, March 4

12 p.m. ET

FOX

Seton Hall Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+9 -110	139.5 -110o / -110u	+340

Providence Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-9 -110	139.5 -110o / -110u	-455

Odds via BetRivers. Get up-to-the-minute college basketball odds here.

Ed Cooley capped off another unbelievably successful season at Providence, with the Friars running their way to a 21-9 (13-6 Big East) record.

The Friars will look to sneak into the third (or potentially second) seed with a final home win over the Pirates. It should be an easy feat considering Providence is an eight-point favorite.

However, Seton Hall's style makes it worth backing as a three-possession underdog. And the Pirates are due for a win.

Seton Hall Pirates

For a hot second, I thought Shaheen Holloway had figured it out. The Pirates won 7-of-8 between Jan. 7 and Feb. 5. Alas, the issues that haunted the Pirates in the early going reared their ugly head again.

Seton Hall can't score. Holloway's Saint Peter's teams were never offensive powerhouses, and his Pirates looked clueless on the offensive end of the court at times this season.

The Pirates haven't cracked 1.00 PPP since a late January loss against Butler. They've averaged just 63.2 PPG over the last six games, which includes a predictable five losses.

Seton Hall is trending downward, playing some of its worse basketball at the wrong time.

And now Kadary Richmond is down. The last thing the Pirates needed was another injury, and Richmond is one of the only viable offensive options on the team.

Richmond's status is still day-to-day, so hopefully he'll be good to suit up soon.

Speaking of viable offense, the Pirates try to get out in transition for easy buckets. Their elite defense leads to plenty of turnovers that could go the other way, although they rarely convert.

Seton Hall also relies on lots of off-ball cutting action off Richmond and Al-Amir Dawes. However, again, the Pirates rarely convert.

That said, Holloway is still a hell of a defensive coach. He brought over KC Ndefo from Peter's, and his defensive skills easily translated from the MAAC to the Big East.

Ndefo is the conference's second-best defender, per EvanMiya's DBPR metric. Of course, Richmond is the only player ahead of him.

Either way, Seton Hall is pretty easy to figure out. The Pirates are dominant defensively but bad offensively, leading to this funny graphic:

Image via CBB Analytics

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Providence Friars

Cooley can coach. I'm unsure if there's a better coach in the Big East right now.

How does he find these guys? What did he see in Bryce Hopkins from Kentucky? How did he turn around Noah Locke after that brutal year in Louisville? How did he develop Jared Bynum into one of the better distributors in the Big East?

Either way, Providence continues to surpass expectations. However, the Friars have been shaky of late.

After a 14-3 (6-0) start, the Friars are just 7-6 straight up in their last 13. They picked up a miracle double-overtime win over Creighton but also got swept by Xavier.

Providence runs a half-decent flex offense, but most of its offense comes on extras. Ed Croswell spearheads the second-best offensive-rebounding team in the Big East and the 16th-best nationally, as he snags almost four offensive boards per game.

Croswell is also a surprisingly efficient interior scorer, ranking in the 90th percentile among D-I players in post-up PPP (1.091), per Synergy.

Together, Croswell and Hopkins are the most dangerous interior face-up scoring duo in the conference and maybe the nation. Providence scores almost all of its points on the interior, and the Croswell-Hopkins tandem combines for 18.4 paint PPG.

It's always a mixed bag for Providence on defense. The Friars run guys off the 3-point line well, but a 30.7% 3-point percentage allowed screams negative regression.

Providence also protects the rim fine, although its overall post defense is suspect. It's just hard to get a read on Providence defensively.

Seton Hall vs Providence Betting Pick

The spread is way too big for this Seton Hall defense.

Providence will try scoring on the interior, but that's a challenge against Ndefo and Holloway's scheme. The Friars shot 18-for-40 from 2-point range in the first meeting, getting bailed out with 28 free-throw attempts.

The Friars will likely get to the line again easily, which is a concern. But I still don't see Providence scoring efficiently enough to cover a three-possession spread in a relative grinder.

Also, I love fading Cooley in these spots. While he's one of the best underdog coaches to back, Cooley has largely flailed when laying points, covering just 44% of the time over the past seven seasons.

Seton Hall is due for a big bounce-back performance after three straight losses. I don't know if it'll end in a win, but the Pirates should keep this close.

Besides, four of the last five games between Seton Hall and Providence have been decided by five or fewer. Why can't it happen again?

And for what it's worth, the ShotQualityBets model projects Seton Hall as a 1.6-point underdog in Providence, giving us some value on this moderately large number.

Pick: Seton Hall +8.5

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