Loyola Maryland Greyhounds vs Towson Tigers Prediction, Odds, Best Bets - Week 2

Loyola Maryland makes the short trip to Towson fresh off a 106-point outburst at home. Towson defends well but has scored 70 points or fewer all season, a profile that makes a big home spread hard to sustain.

The Matchup

Loyola Maryland visits Towson on Thursday evening at SECU Arena in Towson, with Towson a 14.5-point favorite, a total of 136.5, on FloSports. The two campuses sit minutes apart in Baltimore, so this is a bus ride rather than a road trip, and the Greyhounds know this building and this opponent well.

Towson is 1-2 this season, scoring 64.3 points a game and allowing 67.3. The Tigers lost at Santa Clara and at Utah before beating Long Island 66-46 at home on Monday. Last season remains part of the picture with so few games played, and Towson went 19-15 last season while allowing 66.1 points a game, a defense-first identity that has carried straight into this season.

What has not carried over is easy scoring. This Towson group defends like its predecessors and shoots like a team still figuring out its rotation, which is a dangerous combination for a favorite asked to win by a wide margin.

Loyola Maryland is 1-2, scoring 73.7 points a game and allowing 70.7. The Greyhounds lost at Georgetown and at Mount St. Mary's, then exploded for a 106-64 home win over Washington Maryland on Monday. Last season Loyola went 12-20 and allowed 77.1 points a game, so the defensive improvement in this small sample is the most interesting thing about the Greyhounds. Monday's rout came against a lower division opponent and the scoring total flatters them, but the shooting that produced it came from the Greyhounds' real rotation players, in their real roles.

Leo Ricketts and Carter Berg-McLean carry no injury designations for Loyola Maryland, and Zion Stanford and Christian Doerr carry no injury designations for Towson.

Key Factors

Loyola's guards are shooting the ball with real confidence. Ricketts scored 28 points against Washington Maryland, hit 5 of 8 three-pointers and made all 9 of his free throws, a complete scoring night rather than a hot streak from one spot.

Berg-McLean added 17 points with 6 assists and hit 5 of 9 from three, so Towson cannot simply load up on Ricketts and expect the Greyhounds to stall. Two live shooters stretch a defense built on packing the paint, and every clean look they create makes a 14.5-point gap harder to build.

Towson's weakness is its own offense. The Tigers have scored 70, 57 and 66 points in their three games, and their last outing, the 66-46 win over Long Island, was a defensive strangling rather than an offensive statement.

Stanford gave them 12 points and 10 rebounds and Doerr added 10 points with 8 rebounds and 7 assists, solid lines that still added up to a modest total against a weak opponent. A favorite scoring in the mid 60s needs near perfection on defense to cover a spread this size, because one brief Loyola run erases much of the margin it has built.

The counterpoint is Towson's defense at home, and it deserves respect. The Tigers held Long Island to 46 points, they allowed just 66.1 points a game across last season, and Loyola's big night came against Washington Maryland rather than a Division I defense.

If Towson drags this game into the half court and Ricketts cools off, the Greyhounds could be stuck in the 50s and the favorite covers late at the foul line. The bet is that Loyola's shooting travels the short distance to SECU Arena well enough to keep this a game, because Towson simply has not shown the scoring punch to run away from anyone yet.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.