Atlantic 10 Championship: Richmond vs. Temple Odds & Pick: March 14th 2010

Richmond Spiders vs. Temple Owls
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The Atlantic 10 finale in Atlantic City certainly won’t be one for the faint of heart on Sunday afternoon. The Richmond Spiders (26-7, 18-10-1 ATS) and the Temple Owls (28-5, 22-11 ATS) both play fantastic defense, and they’ll take to the court against each other in this crucial college basketball betting affair. Richmond made it to the finals of this tournament by dumping UMass 77-72 and Xavier 89-85. Temple crushed St. Bonaventure 69-51 and Rhode Island 57-44 to make it to this point.

Opposing teams have a miserable time trying to shoot the rock against the Spiders. Richmond allows teams to shoot 39.1% from the floor and 29.1% from downtown. Both numbers are amongst the best 15 rankings in the country. Save an overtime loss to Xavier on February 28th, the Spiders haven’t been beaten since January 20th. Gs Kevin Anderson and David Gonzalvez are the teams’ top two scorers at 18.0 and 14.7 points per game respectively. Those two combined to score 53 points in the semifinal against the Musketeers. Richmond shot 46% from the floor in the victory as opposed to the 40.6% for Xavier.

What’s rough for the Spiders in this game is that they only play the second best defense amongst teams in this game. Temple ranks in the top five in the country in points per game allowed (56.3 PPG, #4), field goal percentage allowed (37.7%, #2), and three point shooting percentage (28.1%, #4). On top of that, the Owls have held their L/6 NCAA basketball betting rivals to just 49.5 points per game. When you play defense like that, you don’t need a dominant scorer, but Temple can still rely on G Ryan Brooks, who is scoring 14.3 points per game in ‘09-’10.

Both of these teams are just on fire against the college basketball spreads right now. Temple is 57-28-1 ATS in its L/86 games, while Richmond 9-2-1 ATS in its L/11. The Spiders have covered three straight in this rivalry though. They knocked off the Owls 71-54 in Richmond in the only meeting of the season of these schools.

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