NCAA Tournament First Round: (8) LSU (B-B) vs (9) St. Bonaventure (B-B) prediction and college basketball game preview.
LSU vs St. Bonaventure Broadcast
Date: Saturday, March 20
Game Time: 1:45 pm ET
Venue: Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, IN
Network: TNT
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LSU vs St. Bonaventure Game Preview
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Why St. Bonaventure Will Win
Defense, defense, defense.
The Bonnies won the Atlantic 10 tournament championship with a suffocating D that’s one of the best in the nation in field goal defense – teams are hitting just 39% from the field – and allows just 60 points per game. It’s not necessarily a slow-and-go team, but it’s able to grind things down when needed and it’s just really, really good defensively.
It hit a bit of a three-point lull at the very end, but it’s normally good enough to be a problem form the outside. If it’s able to make 40% from three, that fits into everything else the team likes to do.
On the flip side, defense is optional at times for an LSU team that doesn’t have enough of an interior defensive presence, and it doesn’t lock down for a full 40 minutes.
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Why LSU Will Win
LSU might be able to simply outbomb the Bonnies.
This is a good St. Bonaventure offense overall, but it’s not amazing from three and it’s not going to get up and down the court like LSU can in a shootout.
The Tigers might have defensive lapses, but it’s good enough at moving the ball around and athletic enough to score in a variety of ways. Yeah, the St. Bonaventure D is nasty, but it doesn’t force mistakes and doesn’t come up with a ton of steals. LSU won’t be bothered enough from the outside.
To go elitist, the best team it beat was VCU, and it went 2-1 against the Rams. The Bonnies didn’t play anyone outside of the mid-majors, and LSU is bringing a whole other level of talent, but …
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What’s Going To Happen
St. Louis beat LSU early in the season, and St. Bonaventure whacked the Billikens two weeks ago – but also lost in a midseason meeting.
That Tiger loss was way back in November, though. In general, it takes offensive firepower to beat LSU and not necessarily a big defensive performance. Other than the SEC Tournament loss to Alabama defeat at Arkansas a few weeks ago, LSU lost when teams went lights out from the field.
St. Bonaventure will throw a massive scare into the Tigers, and the D will be a problem, there won’t be enough offensive punch – or free throw attempts – in the final five minutes to pull this out.
LSU vs St. Bonaventure Prediction, Line
LSU 74, St. Bonaventure 70
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Line: LSU -1.5, o/u: 144.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3
Must See Rating: 3.5
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