Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas
The college football season is over and now college basketball takes center stage, as we are about two months away from the start of the NCAA Tournament. Two teams that should be punching tickets to the Big Dance are Vanderbilt and Arkansas and we’ve got what should be a banger of a regular season battle here with the Commodores in Fayetteville to take on the Razorbacks. Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas is one of 34 games on the Tuesday slate and could very well be the highest-scoring game on the board.
This preview focuses solely on this game, but we’ve got daily best bets from Greg Peterson, as well as his daily spread and total projections, picks six days a week from Adam Burke, and men’s and women’s college basketball projections five days a week from Tyler Shoemaker, the proprietor of the T Shoe Index.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of January 19, 6:15 pm PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas (-1.5, 174.5)
9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
The Vandy football program definitely found a gem in head coach Clark Lea and the baseball team has been led by the steady hand of Tim Corbin, who has won nearly 68% of his games since taking over in 2003. It seems like the basketball program has its magic man now as well, as Mark Byington took the Commodores dancing last season for the first time since 2017 and got the team off to a 16-0 start to this season.
Major non-conference wins over UCF, Saint Mary’s, SMU, VCU, and Wake Forest fed into a 3-0 start in conference play, including a home win over Alabama, but the last two games have not gone as well for Vandy. They went from one Music City to another for a 16-point loss to Texas down in Austin and came home to lose 98-94 to Florida, allowing a season-high 1.345 points per possession.
The Razorbacks are three up and two down in SEC play as well, dropping road tilts to Auburn and Georgia in Quadrant 1-A games. Arkansas is just 1-5 in Q1-A games thus far per Bart Torvik and this is their chance at another victory, having beaten Texas Tech on a neutral back on December 13. Their losses are at Michigan State, on neutrals to Duke and Houston, and those two SEC defeats. They do have a couple of nice Q1 wins over Louisville and Tennessee, both at home.
In fact, John Calipari’s team hasn’t lost on their home floor yet this season. Not only that, but they’ve won their last two games over Tennessee and South Carolina by 11 and 34 points. In those 11 games, albeit not all against good opponents, the Razorbacks are bombing away at 40.1% from 3. They’re also shooting over 79% at the free throw line, an important factor in games expected to be tight such as this one.
For the most part, Vanderbilt has been undeterred in road or neutral settings. The Texas loss was the exception for this season, as the Commodores have played one road/neutral team ranked outside the top 85 and have gone 7-1 while shooting 39.2% from 3, nearly 77% at the line, and rank 12th in eFG% offense and 31st in eFG% defense over those games.
In other words, expect a barnburner here. The Commodores have four players in double figures and Jalen Washington is close with 9.8 PPG despite only playing about 20 minutes per game. Tyler Tanner (17.4 PPG), Duke Miles (17.3 PPG), and Tyler Nickel (14.7 PPG) are all stat sheet fillers that are shooting 82% or better at the line and 35.5% or better from 3. Tanner and Miles are also among the top 15 in steals per game.
Arkansas is a little less balanced with three scorers in double figures, but they’re all also shooting the 3 extremely well. Darius Acuff Jr. is the belle of the ball for Arkansas, as an impending lottery pick with 19.8 PPG and 6.3 APG. Meleek Thomas (15.3 PPG) and Trevon Brazile (13.1 PPG) are the next two on the board, with all three firing at 39.3% or better from beyond the arc. Brazile is also the team’s leading rebounder and a 55% shooter from the floor.
Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas Prediction
Against teams of this caliber, Vandy’s numbers are better. Against Q1 or better opponents, the Commodores are 4-2 and Arkansas is 3-5, but Vanderbilt is 15th in 2P% and 34th in 3P%, while Arkansas is 108th and 111th, respectively, shooting 8% worse on 2s and 6.4% lower on 3s. Vandy also takes better care of the basketball and forces more turnovers in these types of games. Arkansas could have a big advantage on the offensive glass, but Vanderbilt is better at making shots and that seems like the difference in a game forecasted to be very high-scoring.
Pick: Vanderbilt +1.5
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