Long Island at La Salle: Home Favourite Price Meets Thin Early Numbers

La Salle is a 4.5-point home favourite, priced at -128, against a Long Island University team that has already beaten it once: a 70-60 win last December, played at Long Island. That is the only prior meeting. The central question tonight is how much weight a one-game La Salle sample deserves, because the price and the early-season numbers point in opposite directions.

The in-season numbers favour the visitors, though neither team looks good. Long Island is 0-2 with a net rating of -14.3 points per 100 possessions, rank 270. La Salle is 0-1 after a 55-94 road loss and sits at -55.2, rank 349. La Salle's offensive rating of 72.2 is rank 345, and its defensive rating of 127.4 is rank 313. Long Island's defence, at 99.6 points allowed per 100 possessions (rank 179), is the one unit in this game that looks close to average.

Shot quality explains much of the La Salle gap. The Explorers posted a 31.7% effective field-goal percentage (rank 311) while taking 65% of their field-goal attempts from three and hitting 20.5%. Their opponent shot 58.8%. They also turned the ball over on 24.9% of possessions, and Long Island forces turnovers on 18.4% of possessions. Long Island's offence is no solution either: 42.3% effective field-goal percentage, rank 270, and 21.9% from three. La Salle's 27.7% offensive rebound rate is one bright spot, since misses should be plentiful on both sides.

Sample size caps all of this. La Salle has played one game, a road blowout, and ranks among roughly 365 teams swing hard after a single result. Long Island has played two. Streaks are descriptive: Long Island has lost four straight on the road and three straight overall, while La Salle has lost three straight. Long Island is on two days' rest; La Salle has had five. In the rotations, Daquan Davis and Vasean Allette lead Long Island in minutes, with Allette at 14.5 points per game over two games, and Kam Burton led La Salle with 15 points in its one game.

The market has not moved. The spread opened at La Salle -4.5 and is still there, the total is unchanged at 144.5, and the moneyline of La Salle -226, Long Island +173 is essentially where it started. The price puts more faith in La Salle than its one-game numbers do. The total carries its own tension: Long Island averages 60 points per game and La Salle scored 55 in its only game, yet La Salle has gone over in six straight games overall, while none of Long Island's games have gone over the closing total this season.

Overall the evidence is thin and conflicting. The early rates favour Long Island in nearly every category, the price favours La Salle at home, and neither side has shown much worth trusting. With flat lines, there is no movement to read.