Temple and Richmond Battle for Atlantic-10 Title

The Temple Owls used a terrific 34 to 17 first half against the surprise Rhode Island Rams in order to win the 1st semi-final in the Atlantic-10 Tournament on Saturday.  Temple got a chance to take things somewhat easy in the second half of that game.

They won’t be able to take a single minute easy on Sunday when they face the Richmond Spiders in the championship.  Richmond outscored the Xavier Musketeers 16 to 12 in overtime to beat Xavier 89 to 85 as 3 point underdogs.  The Spiders have been on fire lately.  They are a legitimate NCAA Tournament team with a 26 and 7 record.  They’ve gone 9 and 1 straight-up in their last 10 games and have won 4 games in a row.

Could they possibly make it 5?  Below are the NCAAB odds for this game.

Richmond Spiders                                         +3 ½ -110        O 115 -110
Temple Owls                                                  -3 ½ -110         U 115 -110
Tip-off:  1:00 pm EST

The trends point to a very competitive game both straight-up and against the spread.

• The Richmond Spiders are 10-2-1 ATS in their last 13 games versus the Atlantic-10 Conference.
• The Richmond Spiders are 7-0-1 ATS in their last 8 games versus a team with a winning % above .600.
• The Temple Owls are 5 and 0 ATS in their last 5 games following an ATS victory.
• The Temple Owls 6 and 0 ATS in their last 6 games following a straight-up victory.

Temple didn’t have much of a shot against Richmond the last time these two teams faced each other on February 6th.  Richmond shot 57.8% from the field including making 9 out of 16 three point shots.  They buried Temple with a 44 to 26 1st half.  Spiders’ star guard Kevin Anderson, who averages 17.8 points per game, racked up 29.

Anderson has been unstoppable during the Atlantic 10 tournament.  He’s grabbed 10 rebounds and has scored 40 points in 2 games.  Do the Owls have any shot of stopping Anderson and the Spiders?

The fact that Temple had to play 45 minutes on Saturday in order to beat Xavier does mean something.  Anderson played for the entire 45 minutes. 

Temple, who has gone 9 and 1 straight-up in their last 10 games including winning 9 games in a row and who have gone 8 and 2 ATS in their last 10 is a seriously good team.  The only issue is that Temple’s entire game plan revolves around the ability to keep teams from scoring.

Team’s average 56.3 points per game against Temple.  Teams average 37.7% from the field per game against the Owls.  The Owls frustrate teams into making bad shots.

Kevin Anderson doesn’t appear to have an issue with that.  Anderson can break down Temple’s famed zone defense as well as anybody in the nation.  He figures to have another terrific game on Sunday even though the Spiders had to play in an overtime match on Saturday.  If Anderson is cold, then watch for David Gonzalvez, who had 26 points against Xavier, to take the key shots.