Marist vs. UC Irvine: Free College Basketball Pick: February 20th 2010

Marist vs. UC Irvine
Free Pick: UC Irvine -12 (February 20th 2010 – Matt Fargo)
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The season has been done for Marist for quite some time now and what a season it has been. The Red Foxes are 1-25 on the season and arguably one of the worst teams in college basketball. If there is anything good that has come from this season it is that a lot of young players have gotten valuable minutes in looking toward next season. Now Marist is being asked to head to the west coast for this Bracket Buster game on Saturday. This season, the furthest west the Red Foxes have travelled was to Buffalo, New York so this is something brand new to the team and it will be more into getting out of the snow and cold of Dutchess County and into the warmer environment of California. The lone win came this season at home against Manhattan by just six points and while it has been involved in some close games on the road, those were early in the season and the margins have been anything close of late.

It has been a roller coaster of a season for the Anteaters who have dropped 10 of 12 road games heading into Wednesday’s conference showdown at Riverside but they are a very decent 9-5 at home including wins in two of their last three games at Bren Events Center. After dropping a non-conference game at Cal-Bakersfield two weeks ago, Cal-Irvine came back home and defeated the Roadrunners to split the home-and-home series. That may not seem overly important but it extended the Anteaters record to 4-1 this season in home games coming off a road game. That will be case again here as the Anteaters are back home following that Wednesday road game and there will be no lookahead here despite this being a non-conference tilt as Cal-Irvine does not play again until the following Saturday. The Anteaters have won their Bracket Buster games the last two years which tells us that these games are just as important as these late-season conference matchups.

Cal-Irvine is certainly not used to laying a big number but we should not be worried as the Red Foxes are more concerned about taking in the sights than playing in a meaningless hoops game. 3* Cal-Irvine Anteaters