NCAAB: Hoosiers have been hurting

The Indiana Hoosiers wrapped up an NCCA tournament berth weeks ago, but momentum is not on their side heading into their opening round clash with the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Eighth seed Indiana is a 1 ½-point favorite for Friday’s 9:40 pm ET game in Raleigh, NC. So far, only 33% of the betting public is backing the 9th seeded Razorbacks.

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Indiana is 25-7 on the season, but they have lost three out of their last four games including a Big Ten quarterfinal game against Minnesota. Even worse, from a betting perspective they are only 1-5 ATS in their last six games.

That’s not how interim coach Dan Dakich wanted to end his season. Dakich took over in late February when head coach Kelvin Sampson resigned after getting entangled with some more NCAA rules violations. Dakich was chosen over the player’s choice, assistant Ray McCallum.

In his first game as head coach, Dakich was an 85-82 road win over lowly Northwestern. The Hoosiers failed to cover as 11 ½-point favorites and have only covered once so far in the ‘Dakich era’ despite being 3-3 straight up.

Arkansas (22-11) was not playing their best basketball towards the end of the regular season, going 2-3 straight up and 0-4-1 ATS. However, they did get two covers with impressive wins over Vanderbilt and Tennessee in the SEC tournament, before losing to Georgia in the final.

When matching up these teams, you have to look at the star power of Indiana versus the more athletic and well balanced lineup of the Razorbacks.

Indiana is led by freshman guard, Eric Gordon and senior big man D.J. White. They average over 21 and 17 points respectively, and are perhaps the two best players in the pedestrian Big Ten Conference. The problem is they’re not getting much help from the supporting cast right now and the team’s mindset after the coaching change is questionable at best.

Arkansas has five players averaging between 9.3 and 14.3 PPG. Leading scorer, Sonny Weems has struggled a bit lately, and he injured his knee on practice on Tuesday, but he should be ready to go. The Razorbacks also have a frontcourt size advantage in this game with four senior big men who are all at least 6’8”.

Indiana was the top scoring team in their conference at 75.1 PPG. Arkansas averages 73.6 PPG but they’re 9-0 this season when scoring 80 points or more so expect them to push the tempo and try to get into a shootout.

The winner of this game likely gets North Carolina playing in its own backyard, so it’s probably ‘one and done’ for either squad. That being said, this looks like a close and competitive contest that will be determined by whoever executes better in the final minutes.

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