It is still the first week of the college basketball season, and we are learning a lot about teams at this point. On Thursday, the DePaul Blue Demons host the South Florida Bulls in Chicago. Both teams won their opener, with DePaul beating West Georgia and USF defeating Charleston Southern. This game will be a better test for both squads. I have high expectations for this DePaul team that is very much on the rise. I think the Blue Demons might be sneaky good, and I am going to take them to cover -6.5 at home.
DePaul has a lot of positive things working for them this year. The Demons have a veteran point guard who is an elite defender. They have three 7-footers to man the inside and they also brought in some shooters in the transfer portal. The Big East is deep this year, but DePaul is a sneaky postseason contender. As for USF, it is operating under new head coach Chris Mack -- the program’s fourth head coach in four years. Not surprisingly, the Bulls have a remade roster and we can expect some uneven results from them -- especially early. They seem to have some guards who can score, but their frontcourt might be undermanned. I expect DePaul to be the better team.
South Florida vs DePaul prediction: DePaul -6.5 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable to -8.5.
