Can DePaul Cover 22.5 Points After Five Straight Non-Covers?

DePaul is a 22.5-point home favourite over Alabama A&M at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, with tip set for 9:00 PM ET on Monday. The central question is whether a price this steep is justified for a team that has been failing to cover. The two programs have not met in the last 400 days, so there is no recent head-to-head to draw on, and neither side has an injury reported.

The streaks are DePaul's most striking feature. The Blue Demons have failed to cover six straight games at home, five straight overall, and five straight as a home favourite. Those runs describe what has happened rather than what will happen, but they show that DePaul has not been clearing the numbers it has been handed, and tonight's number is a large one.

The market has moved only slightly. The spread opened at DePaul -21.5 and now sits at -22.5, a small one-point move toward DePaul. Current prices are DePaul -113 and Alabama A&M -111. On the moneyline DePaul is -9341 and Alabama A&M +2010, against openers of -6030 and +1698, and the implied win probability is essentially unchanged. The total is 141.5, down from 142.5, a small move toward the Under, with Over -111 and Under -110.

Rotation numbers add a little texture, with the caveat that they come from only two games per team. DePaul's top five by minutes are all guards. Noah Meeusen leads at 32 minutes and 12 points per game, followed by Ade Popoola at 29.5 minutes and 12 points. Koree Cotton is averaging 12.5 points in 23 minutes, while Layden Blocker has played 22.5 minutes for 4.5 points per game.

Alabama A&M's scoring has been more evenly spread across a lineup that includes forwards. Sami Pissis leads the minutes at 24.5 and is scoring 15.5 points per game. Jalen Carruth is at 16 points and Devin Brown at 15 points, both in 19.5 minutes. Stephaun Walker adds 11 points in 22.5 minutes. Two-game samples say little about how the Bulldogs will hold up against a home favourite of this size.

Taken together, the evidence is thin and mostly about price. The one concrete pattern, DePaul's run of non-covers, points against the idea that a big home number has been easy for this team to meet, yet the market has nudged that number higher rather than lower. The small moves on the total and moneyline add nothing of consequence. With no health differences to separate the teams and little player data to work from, this is a game about whether a 22.5-point margin is reachable, and the evidence does not settle it.