Archie Miller has taken the Dayton Flyers dancing for three straight seasons and will look to make it four this year. Dayton is just outside the Top 25 at the start of the season, but will break into the rankings soon enough if it keeps winning thanks to a difficult slate of non-conference games. That tough schedule starts this Tuesday during ESPN’s 24-hour slate of basketball games when the Flyers travel south to face the Alabama Crimson Tide.
This war on the floor will go down Tuesday, November 15, 2016, at 1:15 p.m. ET at Coleman Coliseum. The game will be televised live on ESPN2. We’ll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Tuesday schedule.
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The Flyers are off to a hot start this season after a 96-68 win against Austin Peay in their home opener. Dayton dominated the game from start to finish on the back of a big offensive effort and had no problem covering the 19-point spread in a game that sailed over the total.
Alabama is in its second year under Avery Johnson and although the Crimson Tide lost a lot of talent from last year’s squad, there is a lot of optimism that this team might break Alabama’s postseason drought. They started the season off the right way, with a 70-53 victory over Coastal Carolina that covered the spread and looked impressive doing it.
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Charles Cooke had the best game of his career against Austin Peay on Friday. The James Madison transfer lit up the Governors from the floor, hitting 11 of 17 shots, and went 5-10 from the three-point line, on his way to 31 points.
Cooke was the team’s leading scorer last season and his success goes hand-in-hand with the teams. He had issues with his touch at times last season, hitting on just 44.7 percent of his field goal attempts, but this is a very good sign.
He will have even more chances to put up points in his senior season. Cooke is surrounded by talent at Dayton and that means defenses won’t be able to key in on him as they would otherwise.
Last Year’s Meeting
These teams met under the same circumstances in Dayton last year, on the Tuesday 1 p.m. game of ESPN’s 24 hours of basketball. That game was never close as Dayton outscored Alabama 40-24 in each half en route to a 32-point victory that easily covered the 10.5-point spread.
Cooke was the leading scorer in that game and Alabama had no answer for him. He was able to create his shot whenever he wanted and also picked up seven rebounds. It was a solid performance against a power conference foe.
The two biggest reasons that the Crimson Tide got hammered last season were their inability to make shots and their futility on the glass. Alabama hit less than 30 percent of its shots against Dayton last season and if you couple that with a performance in which it was outrebounded by 13 on the glass, that’s a recipe for a blowout.
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Dayton looks like it can be one of the best teams in a loaded Atlantic-10 this season. The Flyers added Josh Cunningham after he sat out last season following a transfer from Bradley and should be even more dangerous with his size and athleticism. He had some foul trouble in the opener, but shined when he was on the floor.
Expect the Flyers to be a medium-sized favorite here against the Crimson Tide. Alabama should be improved this season, but it lost a lot of talent in the offseason and will need some time to come together. Meanwhile, Dayton has three of its five starters from last season returning and will be even better with Cunningham. Lay the points with the Flyers here.
College Basketball Odds: Dayton 75, Alabama 65
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