Villanova and La Salle begin the Big East and Atlantic 10 tournaments on Wednesday in similar, yet different positions.

La Salle is an underdog against UMass in Fran Dunphy’s final conference tournament, while Villanova is a favorite, but could be on the verge of a coaching change.

 

La Salle (+2.5) vs. UMass (Over/Under 144.5) (4:30 p.m. ET)

God bless everyone watching the A-10 tournament on Wednesday.

The No. 10-15 seeds all finished at least four games below .500 in conference play and a handful of are about to go through coaching searches, or in La Salle’s case, already completed one.


Since UMass beat La Salle by 23 points on February 9th, both teams went 1-6, but here’s the lone positive – La Salle has a smidge of momentum after beating St. Joe’s on Saturday.

Look, that’s probably more an emotional win than the catapult to a long postseason run, but at least it’s something.

The problem with backing La Salle is that the Explorers fell to UMass by a combined 45 points in two regular-season meetings.

UMass covered the spread and the under hit in both games. The totals were in the 150s for both of those contests, but Wednesday’s over/under sits at 144.5. The final scores of both head-to-head meetings would’ve gone under Wednesday’s number as well.

UMass and the under are probably the ways to go in this one, but you never know, maybe La Salle has one more win left in it.

 

Seton Hall vs. Villanova (-10.5) (Over/Under 126.5) (9 p.m. ET)

This is the third time this season in which Villanova is favored by at least 7.5 points over Seton Hall and the over/under for a Nova/Seton Hall game is under 130.

Nova covered and the over hit in the first meeting, while Seton Hall covered and the under hit in the second clash.

Nova is actually 6-3 ATS in its last nine games and the over is 5-4 in that span.

That’s a good sign for a big Nova win, as is Seton Hall’s 2-5 ATS record as a double-digit underdog.

The Pirates are 3-3 to the over when the total closed below 130 points. Nova is 3-1 to the over with totals below 130 this season.

The other PA sports betting angle you can take is betting Villanova’s team total, which sits at 68.5. Villanova went over that number in 14 of its 18 wins. The ‘Cats scored 68 points in two of the other wins and were below 60 in the other two.