The very first game in the 2024 NCAA Tournament will take place Tuesday night from Dayton. As part of the first round – the Wager Seahawks will take on the Howard Bison. The winner of this game will take on North Carolina in the West Region.
The Wagner Seahawks are 16-15. They went into the NEC Tournament as the sixth seed. They were able to upset Sacred Heart, Central Connecticut and Merrimack to win the title. Wagner lost their final two regular season games at Le Moyne and with Fairleigh Dickinson.
The Howard Bison come in as a similar story. The Bison are 18-16 on the season. The Bison tied with North Carolina Central and South Carolina State for second in the MEAC. In the conference tournament, the Bison beat Morgan State, Norfolk State and Delaware State.
The Howard Bison are -2.5 over Wagner in this game.
Wagner Seahawks
Wagner, in the win over Merrimack saw guard Tahron Allen play all 40 minutes of the game, and scored 22 points and ripped down 7 rebounds. His conference tournament was terrific, with 22, 11 and 22 points in the tournament. On the season, Allen was second on the team with 10.8 points per game.
The top scorer for Wagner is Melvin Council. Council is scoring 14.6 points per game. The Seahawks as a team are scoring 63.5 points per game. They are making just 7 three point shots per game.
In the nonconference, Wagner lost its first game of the season at Fordham. The Seahawks’ first win of the season came on November 9th against Molloy. The Seahawks also won over NJIT at the end of November.
Howard Bison
Howard was very balanced in the conference title game. They saw four guys score double digits in the game. Both Jordan Hairston and Marcus Dockey played all 40 minutes in the game. Hairston led the way with 18 points, and he went 7 for 7 from the free throw line.
During the regular season, the Bison scored 75.1 points per game. The top scorer for the Bison was Bryce Harris, with 16.6 points per game. Also scoring double digits per game was Seth Towns and also Dockery. The Bison won their three conference tournament games by an average of 7.1 points per game.
The Bison won their first game of the new season. They were able to beat Hampton at home by 12. The Bison also beat Boston University early in the season. Their second and third games of the season were losses to Georgia Tech and James Madison. In the loss to James Madison, they allowed 107 points.
Bison Top Seahawks
In the end, we like the offense of the Howard Bison to come away with a win here. Look for a competitive game, but in the end, the Bison hit enough shots. The final bet for this game is the Howard Bison -2.5 over the Wagner Seahawks.
