The Santa Clara Broncos and Xavier Musketeers will meet on Monday night in Cincinnati. Both squads enter undefeated at 2-0, but the Musketeers have home‐court advantage and are slight favorites to improve to 3-0 on the season. Before tip-off from Cintas Center, continue reading to get my Santa Clara vs Xavier prediction for tonight.
Pick: Santa Clara +2.5
Confidence: ★★★★☆
Both teams are off to 2-0 starts and are trying to stay undefeated here. Santa Clara most recently beat McNeese 79-67 and looked impressive against a team that made the NCAA Tournament a season ago. The Broncos are grabbing 47 rebounds per game and they will try to dominate the glass again in this matchup.
Xavier has won a pair of close games against smaller schools going into this matchup. They won tight contests against Marist and Le Moyne at home and they will look for a more convincing performance in this game. If they are going to get that performance, the Musketeers are going to need to be more efficient shooting the basketball. Xavier is shooting 38.4% from the field and that is not conducive to long-term success.
Ball movement is also something to monitor on the Xavier side going into this matchup. They are averaging 16.5 assists per game through two games. Nobody on their roster is averaging four assists per game yet. They need to be more intentional about passing to set up easy buckets to avoid their first loss of this season.
Score Projection: Santa Clara 76 – Xavier 74
Win Probability: Santa Clara 40%, Xavier 60%
Xavier is a favorite on their home floor. But they have not looked convincing at all early in the season. Santa Clara hasn't been tested all that much to start the year, but I think that they have a better chance to cover the number than the Musketeers do. I'm going to take the points with the Broncos in a game that Santa Clara could very well win outright in Cincinnati.
Jay Sanin is the GM and Head of Sports at ATS.io. He has been writing about sports gambling since 2013, handicapping tens of thousands of sporting events. He plays sides and totals aggressively across most sports and is more selective in player prop markets. He does his own modeling across most sports, and his family is jealous of how much time he spends on his precious spreadsheets.
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