#790 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Middle Tennessee State -3.5 over Florida Atlantic, Thursday at 7 PM ET - MTSU is just glad to be back at home after not playing here since mid December. The Blue Raiders are coming off 3 straight losses, all on the road. Two of those losses were vs Chattanooga, the top team in the Southern Conference, and then a 7 point loss @ UNT, the 3rd ranked team in CUSA. We were impressed how they fought a very good North Texas team in a very tough spot. MTSU was coming off a tight road loss @ Rice just 2 nights earlier and catching UNT off a rare home loss. FAU, on the other hand, upset Marshall on the road Saturday as 5 points dogs. The Herd played without one of their better players (Darius George) while FAU shot lights out at 54% which was more than 10% higher than their road average coming into the game. The Owls were 0-3 in road games entering that won with losses vs High Points, New Mexico, and VCU. That was a rare road win for Florida Atlantic on Saturday and with that win they’ve still won just 5 of their last 23 true road games. They are a poor defensive team (276th in eFG% defense) and more so on the road where they have allowed opponents to hit 49% of their shots from the field. Defending the arc is a huge problem for the Owls as well ranking 353rd allowing a ridiculous 41% on the season. They also turn the ball over on almost 20% of their possessions which is not good vs MTSU who is very adept at creating turnovers (41st nationally). It’s a double revenger for Middle Tennessee after losing both meetings last year. Both were on the road on back to back nights as that’s the way the played it last year with the Covid situation. Now they get FAU to play FAU here at home and the Raiders will play with urgency coming off 3 losses. Lay it.