The Vermont Catamounts and Arkansas Razorbacks clash Thursday in an NCAA tournament first round matchup in college basketball action from KeyBank Center.
The Vermont Catamounts enter the NCAA tournament as the #13 seed, finishing the year at 28-5, including a 17-1 mark in America East play, taking down NJIT, Binghamton and UMBC to life the conference tournament championship. Ryan Davis leads the Catamounts in scoring with 17.2 PPG while Ben Shungu has 16.1 PPG and 2.3 APG to the round out the duo of double-digit scorers for Vermont up to this point in the season. Isaiah Powell’s got 11 PPG with a team-high 6.3 RPG and 2.9 APG to lead Vermont on the glass and in the assist department. As a team, Vermont is averaging 74 PPG on 48.6% shooting from the field, 35.8% from three and 75.1% from the foul line while allowing 61.5 PPG on 41.4% shooting from the field and 34.4% from three this season.
The Arkansas Razorbacks come into the conference tournament as the #4 seed, finishing the year with a record of 25-8 including a 13-5 mark in SEC conference play. The Hogs took down LSU in the quarterfinals before falling to Texas A&M in the conference semi-finals. JD Notae leads the Hogs in scoring with 18.4 PPG along with 4.5 RPG and 3.7 APG while Au’Diese Toney has 11 PPG with 5.3 RPG. Stanley Umude has 11.8 PPG with 4.6 RPG and Jaylin Williams also leads Arkansas with a team-high 9.6 RPG and 2.6 APG as well as 10.5 PPG this season. As a team, Arkansas is averaging 77.3 PPG on 44% shooting from the field, 31.1% from three and 74.9% from the foul line while allowing 68.2 PPG on 40.9% shooting from the field and 32.6% from three this season.
Vermont is 0-4 ATS in their last 4 neutral site games and 6-0 ATS in their last 6 Thursday games while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games overall. Arkansas is 14-3-1 ATS in their last 18 games overall and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 NCAA tournament games as a favorite while the over is 6-0 in their last 6 games overall.
I get the reasoning for Arkansas being favored, but I think the Hogs can be too reliant on JD Notae to get production. Vermont didn’t have a problem running through the America East, and jumping up from America East competition to battle the SEC is a massive leap, but if there’s a team that can do it, I think Vermont’s more than capable. Vermont beat up on a Northern Iowa team that won the regular season crown in the MVC and gave fellow tournament teams Providence and Yale all they could handle. I’ll side with Vermont here.