The No. 4 ranked Tennessee Volunteers men’s basketball team, who narrowly escaped an early exit from the SEC tournament at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on Saturday by topping South Carolina by a deuce, must face a determined Arkansas Razorbacks squad when the two play at Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus. The tournament moved to the different venue due to damage sustained to the Georgia Dome from a severe storm Saturday night during the game between Mississippi State and Alabama.
The Volunteers , winners of the regular season SEC title, had no problem with the Razorbacks in their only meeting this year pounding them by the score of 93-71 at Knoxville on Feb 13. Oddsmakers at SportsBetting.com took note of that double-digit win by installing the Volunteers for Saturday’s game as -6.0 point favorites against the spread and with -270 money line odds to win straight up.
Betting trends show the public wagering heavily on the side of Tennessee both ATS (79%) and SU 82%). The total is expected to exceed the 147 mark by 86% of bets placed.
The Razorbacks and Volunteers will be the second game of the day in a revised tournament schedule that begins with the postponed quarterfinal game between Kentucky and Georgia at 12 p.m. ET. Following the Arkansas-Tennessee game, Mississippi State will play the Kentucky/Georgia game winner at approximately 6 p.m. ET.
Success in the SEC tournament has been rare for the Vols (29-3), but they managed to avoid what would have been a fourth straight loss in conference tournament play with an 89-87 win over South Carolina in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Tennessee guard Chris Lofton made a 3-pointer with 11.4 seconds left to put the Vols ahead, as they used an impressive offensive effort to win their fourth straight and 13th in the last 14.
John Pelphrey was looking for his Arkansas team to play tough in the Southeastern Conference tournament, and the Razorbacks responded in a big way Friday.
Darian Townes and Gary Ervin each scored 18 points and Arkansas dominated No. 18 Vanderbilt inside, winning 81-75 to advance to the Southeastern Conference tournament semifinals.The Razorbacks (21-10) rolled to a 45-24 rebounding edge and outscored the Commodores 50-20 in the paint.
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