Hofstra Offense Should Push This One Over Total

Hofstra vs. Seton Hall, 8:00 ET

Looking at the lines today for college basketball, you'll notice only one thing: high spreads. There are quite a lot of games tonight, but most of them have double-digit spreads, which don't give us much of an opportunity to see exciting games. This is still the portion of the season where the best teams are typically playing bad teams so they can figure things out. That's okay because there are still other options than playing the spread. Let's take a look at one of the games that has a close spread and a low total - Hofstra vs. Seton Hall. 

Hofstra isn't a school that you'd normally think of for sports, but they've been a respectable program for a few years now. You won't find them with the best talent in college hoops, but they have a team that works together. It seems like their coach also knows how to prepare them well enough and make the most out of the talent that the team does have. This season, the team is 2-0 with wins over Iona and Old Westbury. In the season opener, they cruised to a 27-point victory with Sophomore guard Jean Aranguren leading the way with 25 points. The second game, against Iona, was a little more of a challenge, but the team still passed it with ease, winning by 14 points. He didn't score quite as many points, but Aranguren was still the focal point of the game with 18 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists. Tonight he will face a much more aggressive defense with Seton Hall. His running mate, Jaquan Sanders, has also been really good to start the year. Add in Cruz Davis, and the three Hofstra guards provide a very good combination of scoring with each of them shooting over 45% from deep. 

Delaware's Christian Ray (left) and Gerald Drumgoole Jr. can't stop Hofstra's Silas Sunday from a basket in the first half Coastal Athletic Association tournament quarterfinal, Sunday, March 10, 2024 at the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington, DC.

Seton Hall is a team that you can think of in college hoops as they consistently are one of the better teams and almost always have a shot at the NCAA tournament. They are off to a somewhat disappointing start, going just 1-1 over the two games. They beat Saint Peter's Peacocks in their season opener, but it wasn't exactly an impressive win. They beat the MAAC team by just four points. It looked like it might have just been early-season jitters, but they dropped their next game. In this one, against Fordham, they fell 57-56. Fordham isn't a terrible team, but they aren't a team that should beat Seton Hall. If you saw that game, it was a meltdown by Seton Hall late in the game. They were up 55-52 with a minute left, and up four with 22 seconds left. They ended up fouling on a three, had the ball with a lead and 15 seconds left, turned it over and then Fordham hit a jumper to win the game at the buzzer. This would be a good bounce back spot for them.

Hofstra is almost without question the better offensive team. Their competition isn't that much worse than what Seton Hall has faced and they put up almost 90 in both games. Seton Hall has barely passed 110 points in their two games combined. For this game, I think that Hofstra is once again going to be able to score. I'm not sure they will be able to fully stop Seton Hall, but I'm also not encouraged by what I've seen from them. I'm going to back the over 135.5 in this one.