Chattanooga vs Mercer 2/5/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Mercer Bears and the Chattanooga Mocs meet in college basketball action from the McKenzie Arena on Saturday afternoon.

The Mercer Bears will try to build on a 67-62 win over Wofford in their last game. Jalen Johnson has 14.5 PPG with 4.8 RPG to lead the Bears in scoring while Felipe Haase has 14.4 PPG with a team-high 5.9 RPG to lead the Bears in rebounding. Neftali Alvarez has 13.9 PPG with a team-high 3.6 APG to lead the Bears in assists and James Glisson III has 11.4 PPG and 5.3 RPG to make up the group of double-digit scorers for Mercer up to this point in the season. As a team, Mercer is averaging 70.5 PPG on 44.8% shooting from the field, 35.9% from three and 76.4% from the foul line while allowing 70.7 PPG on 44.1% shooting from the field and 35.2% from three this season.

The Chattanooga Mocs will hope to bounce back from an 80-72 loss to Samford last time out. Malachi Smith leads the Mocs in scoring and assists with 20.8 PPG and 3.2 APG while David Jean-Baptiste has 15.2 PPG and Silvio De Sousa has 11.5 PPG with a team-high 6.9 RPG to make up the trio of double-digit scorers for Chattanooga so far this season. As a team, Chattanooga is averaging 76.1 PPG on 47.3% shooting from the field, 36.3% from three and 75.2% from the foul line while allowing 64.4 PPG on 41.6% shooting from the field and 30.7% from three this season.

Mercer is 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games as a road underdog and 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the under is 7-0 in their last 7 games overall. Chattanooga is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 home games and 20-5-1 ATS in their last 26 games following an ATS loss while the under is 8-3 in their last 11 Saturday games.

I get the case that could be made for Chattanooga here, as the Mocs are one of the teams to beat in the SoCon this season, but they haven’t been blowing teams away with much consistency this season and on the other hand, Mercer could keep this one close or lose by 15-20. Instead, I’m going to side with the under. The Bears have played to seven straight unders coming into this one and Chattanooga’s got one of the tougher defensive units in the SoCon. Give me the under here.