IHTIT: Tennessee Vols vs. Vanderbilt Commodores Basketball Preview (2/17/24)
It's Hoops Time in Tennessee: The Vols (18-6, 8-3 SEC, 10-6 vs. Q2+) got a nice bounce-back 92-63 win at Arkansas Wednesday night. That same night, Vanderbilt (7-17, 2-9 SEC, 1-13 Q2+) picked up their biggest win so far this season beating Texas A&M 74-73 in Nashville. It was the Dores' second SEC win this season and their first win over a Quad 1 or 2 team.
This is the second meeting between these two teams this season, with UT taking a 75-62 victory at Vandy last month. Tennessee has a 130-76 all-time lead in the series and is 76-20 at home.
Preview Graphic: See the basketball glossary for more information. Click for larger version.
Bullets:
- Vandy, just like a month ago, shoots more 3s than most of the conference, but has the lowest made 3P% in the SEC, and one of the worst nationally.
- The Dores also have the fewest assists per field goals made in the conference, and are among the worst in that stat nationally.
- For example, last time these two met, Vandy's Ezra Manjon had the Helper flair, meaning he was one of the SEC's top assist men. Now he's got the Super Scorer flair--I'm assuming at some point he just started saying "fine, I'll do it myself".
There's not a lot to say here--Vandy has been a bad team all year. They were bad when the Vols played in Nashville a few weeks ago, when Tennessee escaped America's Worst GymTM with a 13-point win despite Vanderbilt's first-half 18-3 run and 35-30 halftime lead. To their credit, Vandy is coming in off their biggest win of the year, so the Dores are hotter now than they've ever been. Will it be enough to upset the Vols?
Prediction: No, it won't. Tennessee 85, Vanderbilt 62
Mediocre Betting Advice: I wrote the above score prediction before the line came out, so I guess I've locked myself into UT minus a bunch of points anyway. However 21.5 is a lot of points, and Vandy has won ATS in this series 6 of the last 10 games (including the last 4 in a row). Not to mention that the under has hit in 7 of the last 10 matchups--just some facts to consider if you ae picking this one. I'll stick to my original prediction though and go Vols -21.5 and over 140.5 anyway.
Prediction Record YTD: 7-3 SU, 6-4 ATS, 4-4-1 O/U
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