The North Dakota Fighting Hawks and the Western Illinois Leathernecks meet Monday in college basketball action from Western Hall. North Dakota is currently 7-14 overall. The Hawks lost to Oral Roberts in their last game. As for Western Illinois, they’re 11-8 on the year after a win over St. Thomas MN. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
North Dakota Fighting Hawks
North Dakota managed to beat Incarnate Word, Elon, Wisconsin-Stout, CSUF, North Central MN and St. Thomas MN in their first 14 games. Since then it’s been a 1-6 run with a lone win over UMKC on Thursday.
In the Saturday matchup versus Oral Roberts, the Hawks were up 39-37 at the break. North Dakota was outscored 47-33 from there and lost 84-72. BJ Omot led the team on 20 points with five rebounds.
Western Illinois Leathernecks
Over on the Western Illinois side, they were 8-6 over 14 games with losses to DePaul, UCF, Youngstown State, UTRGV, SD State and South Dakota. The Leathernecks are 3-2 in their last five with wins over Denver, UMKC and St. Thomas MN.
Matched up against St. Thomas MN on Saturday, the Leathernecks took a 28-23 deficit into the break. Western Illinois hit a 37-28 run in the second half and won it 60-56. Trenton Massner led the team on 18 points with seven rebounds.
ANDREW’S FREE PICK
I’m going to stick with Western Illinois. The Leathernecks are fresh off a comeback win over a pretty good Tommies team and they’ve now won three of their last four. Western Illinois has scored 63 points or fewer in three straight games however, so it would be nice to see the offense take a step forward in this one. As for North Dakota, they’re just 1-7 over their last eight games and haven’t been playing so well. Western Illinois should have some opportunities in this one.