Bowling Green Falcons vs Georgia St Panthers prediction: Georgia State's all-new roster gets a 3.5-point vote of confidence

Two rebuilds, one verdict

Last season's standings say this should not be close. Bowling Green went 18-14 and finished 38th nationally in net efficiency, while Georgia State went 10-22 and ranked 302nd. The market has Georgia State favored by 3.5 anyway, and the reason is that almost none of last season's Panthers are still around.

Georgia State returns 2.4% of last season's minutes. Chris Jones is the only holdover on a roster of transfers and freshmen, and Jon Cremins, a first-year head coach who came up as an assistant at Vanderbilt, James Madison and Georgia Southern, has an entirely new staff. Last season's team numbers describe a different team.

Bowling Green is rebuilding too, just less completely. The Falcons return 20.3% of their minutes, one starter and two rotation players, and Todd Simon is in his fourth season. That continuity is the Falcons' edge. The question is whether it outweighs a home crowd and a Georgia State roster assembled to win now. This opens the SBC-MAC Challenge for both teams, and Bowling Green is chasing its 1,500th program win. The only previous meeting came in 2008, a 77-76 Bowling Green win in overtime.

Bowling Green's new backcourt

The Falcons lost the engine of last season's team. Javontae Campbell averaged 18.7 points and left for Cincinnati, and the frontcourt starters who flanked him are gone as well.

The replacements arrive with real production. Jayden Johnson, a second-team All-MEAC guard at South Carolina State, averaged 13.4 points and handed out 3.5 assists a game. Juan Cranford Jr. made 81 threes at Eastern Kentucky at a 36.3% clip, a volume shooter for a team that rarely shot threes last season. Josiah Shackelford, the lone returning starter, scored 11.3 points a game.

That trio gives Bowling Green three guards who have carried scoring loads elsewhere. What it lacks is proven size: none of the returning or incoming forwards played more than a bench role last season.

Georgia State's bigs, Bowling Green's hands

Bowling Green's defense lived on takeaways last season. It forced turnovers on 20.4% of opponent possessions, 34th nationally. Much of that walked out the door with Campbell, who averaged 3.0 steals, so the Falcons' pressure may not carry over at the same level.

Georgia State's answer is inside. Terrance Dixon Jr. shot 69.3% at Southern without attempting a three, and Jonas Sirtautas blocked 1.8 shots a game at Loyola Maryland and is expected to play heavy minutes. That matters because last season's Panthers made 43.3% of their twos, the worst mark in Division I. A new frontcourt that finishes at the rim would erase the program's biggest weakness, and Bowling Green no longer has the shot-blocking forward who anchored its paint.

Pace, threes and the total

Simon's teams run. Bowling Green averaged 71.7 possessions per 40 minutes last season, 24th-fastest in the country, and scored 81.3 points a game. Georgia State played closer to the middle of the pack, and Cremins has no history as a head coach to read from.

The Panthers' guards will shoot plenty. Eric Parnell made 80 threes at Fairleigh Dickinson, and Jacob Meyer, a preseason All-Sun Belt selection, averaged 12.4 points at UAB. Neither was efficient from deep, though, and Jaden Jackson shot 32.2% from three at South Dakota State.

The total opened at 157.5 in our feed and has climbed to 158.25, a nod to Bowling Green's tempo. The spread has held at Georgia State -3.5, with the Panthers at -170 on the moneyline. No injury or eligibility news had surfaced for either team as of late October.