Mount St. Mary’s vs. Texas Southern Odds For NCAA Tournament First Four Play-In Game

#16 Mount St. Mary's vs. #16 Texas Southern Odds

How Mount St. Mary's & Texas Southern Match Up

Instant Analysis

The SWAC representative ended the undefeated run of Prairie View A&M with a convincing 80-61 win in the tournament final.

Head coach Johnny Jones’ Tigers earned a true road win at Wyoming en route to a 26th-best non-conference strength of schedule.Texas Southern loves to run, ranking 41st in adjusted tempo, per KenPom but also defends inside the arc. The Tigers ranked 23rd in the nation in 2-point interior defense, allowing opponents just 45.1%.

Mount St. Mary’s pulled consecutive road upsets at Wagner and at Bryant to earn the automatic berth from the Northeast Conference. The Mountaineers play at a slow and deliberate pace that also excels at defending inside the arc. The Mount allowed NEC opponents to only shoot 44.2% from 2-point range during the season.

This is a battle of pace, with the team that succeeds in settling into its style the likely winner. — Mike Randle

]What To Know About Mount St. Mary's

Five-foot-8 junior point guard Damian Chong Qui is one of the best stories in all of college basketball. He runs the show and has hit countless clutch 3s throughout the season. That said, this Mount team struggles mightily on the offensive end, ranking in the 18th percentile in terms of overall points per possession, per Synergy.

The Mountaineers earn their living on the defensive end, where they rank 12th in Effective FG% nationally. With decent size for an NEC team, Mount also has also play at the second-slowest adjusted pace in the country, trailing only Virginia.

If they advance, they have almost no chance of pulling off an upset against Michigan. — Stuckey

What To Know About Texas Southern

Michael Weathers leads a group of experienced transfers for a TSU team that took out Prairie View A&M in the SWAC final. Whenever the Tigers have a chance, they want to get out in transition (which they do at a top-20 rate nationally). And that's a good idea because their half-court offense is beyond hideous.

They are one of the least-reliant 3P teams (and worst shooting) in the country and have turnover issues. Their most efficient means of scoring in the half-court is on the offensive glass.

At the end of the day, it's a 16-seed SWAC team. Not much to see here. — Stuckey