The Western Carolina Catamounts and the VMI Keydets meet in college basketball action from Cameron Hall on Friday night.
The Western Carolina Catamounts will be out to build on an 87-84 win at home over East Tennessee State in their last game. Nicholas Robinson leads the Catamounts in scoring and rebounding with 15 PPG and 7.2 RPG while Travion McCray has 11.3 PPG and 5.3 RPG as the only other double-digit scorer for Western Carolina so far this season. Joe Petrakis has 8.3 PPG and Vontarius Woolbright has 9.9 PPG with 6.1 RPG and a team-high 4 APG to lead Western Carolina in assists this season. As a team, Western Carolina is averaging 73.3 PPG on 40.3% shooting from the field, 32.7% from three and 67.8% from the foul line while allowing 78.2 PPG on 44.8% shooting from the field and 36% from three this season.
The VMI Keydets will hope to build on back-to-back wins after a 76-65 win over UNC-Greensboro last time out. Jake Stephens leads the Keydets in scoring and rebounding with 18.6 PPG and 9 RPG while Kamdyn Curfman has 17 PPG with 2.6 APG and Trey Bonham has 10.9 PPG with a team-high 4 APG to lead VMI in assists while also capping off the trio of double-digit scorers for VMI up to this point in the year. Sean Conway has 9.1 PPG with 6.4 RPG this season. As a team, VMI is averaging 79.2 PPG on 46.8% shooting from the field, 38.5% from behind the arc and 78.4% from three while allowing 71.4 PPG on 39.6% shooting from the field and 32% from behind the arc this season.
Western Carolina is 1-4-1 ATS in their last 6 games following a win and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 road games against a team with a home winning percentage above .600 while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 Friday games. VMI is 9-0 ATS in their last 9 games following a win and 0-4-1 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a winning percentage below .400 while the over is 6-1 in their last 7 games overall.
I get the case to be made either way here as VMI is a solid offensive team and Western Carolina plays mediocre defense at best while the Catamounts can hold their own offensively and VMI isn’t the most stout defensive unit either if we’re being transparent here. I’m going to side with the over as I think this is a game that flies into the 160s and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if both teams scored into the 80s here. Give me the over.