College Basketball Odds, Pick for St. Bonaventure vs Dayton

Dayton suffered its first loss in conference play Saturday with a 69-64 defeat at Richmond. As a result, the Flyers fell five spots to No. 21 in the AP Top 25 and they are now a game back of Richmond in the Atlantic 10 standings. They were able to bounce Tuesday with an 83-61 drubbing of George Washington. Dayton will look to get another home victory when it welcomes St. Bonaventure to town Friday night.

St. Bonaventure also pulled out a victory Tuesday, though in more dramatic fashion. It rallied from 20 down to defeat VCU 67-62. The Bonnies improved to 13-7 and 4-4 in conference play, pulling within a game of VCU for fourth place in the league with the conference tournament on the horizon next month.

St. Bonaventure has responded with two consecutive wins after losing four of five. However, something will have to give as Dayton has won 14 of its last 15 games. Dayton has controlled the series as well, winning eight of the last 10 games and covering in seven of them. This time, it is a 7-point favorite, but there may be more value on the total.

St. Bonaventure is a fairly balanced team, ranking 93rd in adjusted offensive efficiency and 73rd in adjusted defensive efficiency. It is not a high-volume 3-point shooting team, but it makes about eight per game. It is 64th in Division I and tied sixth in the Atlantic 10 in 3-point shooting percentage.

Guards Mika Adams-Woods and Charles Pride are both shooting over 44% from deep and are double-digit scorers. However, forward Chad Venning leads the team at 14.2 points per game. He also leads the team with 1.9 blocks per game and the Bonnies rank 42nd nationally in blocks rate.

Pride leads the team with 6.7 rebounds per game despite standing at just 6 feet, 4 inches. St. Bonaventure ranks inside the top 100 in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage. That is an area that it should hold the edge against Dayton. However, it may not have many opportunities. The Bonnies are 149th in effective field goal percentage defensively, particularly struggling inside, where it is 219th in 2-point field goal percentage defense.

St. Bonaventure does not play at a very fast pace, but Dayton is 350th in adjusted tempo. The Flyers are averaging 74 points per game, which may not look amazing on paper, but they rank 16th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 14th in effective field goal percentage.

Shooting 40% from behind the arc, Dayton is the seventh-best 3-point shooting team in the nation. Guard Koby Brea is second in the Atlantic 10 with 58 3s and leads the nation in 3-point percentage (48.7%). Forward Nate Santos is shooting 44.7% from 3 and is fourth in the conference.

Even forward DaRon Holmes II is shooting a shade under 40% from 3 as he continues to add that element to his game. Holmes has put himself in position to be the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year. He is second in the conference in scoring at 19.4 points per game, third with 7.8 rebounds per game and fourth with 2.2 blocks per game.

Holmes anchors the conference's best scoring defense, as the Flyers are allowing just 64 points per game. They also rank in the top 40 in the nation in effective field goal percentage defense, 3-point percentage defense and 2-point percentage defense.

However, they do not force many turnovers, ranking 268th in turnover percentage. And the Flyers are 260th in defensive rebounding percentage.

St. Bonaventure and Dayton both operate at a slow pace, and as a result, their games tend to go under. Six of Dayton's last eight games have gone under, with one of the games going over by one point. Three of St. Bonaventure's last four games have gone under.

Additionally, the last three games in this series have gone under. Neither team has cracked 70 in those three games while the loser has been in the 50s for all three matchups. If those trends continue, this game will fly comfortably under the total of 134.5 points.

Pick: Under 134.5