On Tuesday, the First Four round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament will tip off with a battle of 16-seeds. The Southeast Missouri State Redhawks and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders both won their respective conferences, but only one can advance to take on number one overall seed Alabama in the first round. Here, we make our college basketball betting picks for Southeast Missouri State vs Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the First Four.
Southeast Missouri State vs Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Betting Pick
| ℹ️ The Pick: | Texas A&M-CC -4 |
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This game will be played at UD Arena at 6:40 PM ET on Tuesday, March 14, 2023.
Why Bet on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi:
✅ Texas A&M-CC has the edge offensively in this matchup, ranking over 100 spots higher in the Kenpom rankings on offense. They will be able to get better looks and convert them to advance to the first round of the tournament.
✅ The Islanders faced a tougher test to get to the NCAA Tournament, beating Northwestern State instead of a sub-.500 team like the Tennessee Tech team SEMO got past in their conference title game.
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Southeast Missouri State Redhawks: A Game Two Decades in the Making
The SEMO Redhawks made it to the NCAA Tournament by beating the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles in the Ohio Valley Conference championship game. SEMO went 19-16 this season including the conference tournament, and are in the tournament for the first time since they lost to LSU in 2000’s first round. Here, they will look for their first win in this event as a Division I school.
To get a win here to advance to the first round of the tournament, the Redhawks have to find some sort of help from their bench. That bench scored just four points for SEMO in their OVC conference final triumph. But that may not be good enough against a much more offensively gifted Texas A&M-CC team.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders: Same Stage, Hoping For Different Result
The Islanders of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi are back in the First Four for the second straight year. This year, they beat Northwestern State in the Southland Tournament title game to get here. After losing to Texas Southern in the First Four in 2022, the Islanders have a chance to redeem themselves and to set up the matchup that any small school would want with number one Alabama.
What could set the Islanders apart in this game is their bench, which did way more than that of SEMO in their respective conference title games. Texas A&M-CC got 30 bench points out of their 75 total points in the Southland final. Owen Dease, who delivered 16 off the bench in that game, could be a key figure in an Islanders victory on Tuesday with the nation watching.
