The Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans have had their way with the Sun Belt all season long, but there's been one team which has been a consistent thorn in their sides. The Louisiana Monroe Warhawks split the regular season series with the Trojans in what turned out to be two very close games. The rubber match will give one of these teams the Sun Belt's automatic ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
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HOW THE ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK TROJANS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
The Trojans would surely make a case to stay in the field of 68 if they lost this game. They've got 28 wins including victories against San Diego State and Tulsa. However, with an SOS hovering near 250, UALR can leave nothing to chance.
The well-balanced nature of this team should play well this time of year when games are contested one day after the other. Josh Hagins is the team's leading scorer at 13.1 points per game, but he's one of the nine players averaging at least 13 minutes per game and at least 3.3 points per game for the Trojans.
None of the stats are all that alarming with this team offensively, but that's because the pace of play is insanely slow. Few teams run as much clock on seemingly every possession as do the Warhawks, and that parlayed with a very athletic front line is why they're one of the three teams in America holding clubs under 60 points per game on the season. If they do that again in this one, they'll be sure to dance.
HOW THE LOUISIANA MONROE WARHAWKS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
The Warhawks have to be better in this game to get to loose balls than they were against Texas-Arlington on Saturday. They gave up a stunning 20 offensive rebounds in that game, something you never see out of a team with five different men averaging over 4.5 boards per game.
Offensively, Majok Deng is going to have to be big. He's averaging 18.2 points per game this year, and he's going to be the spark to get everything going for this offense. That's when the outside game with Justin Roberson and Nick Coppola can really start to heat up. Louisiana Lafayette was held down for the mass majority of Saturday's game against UALR, but it had its moments of success, and it became clear that the crowd was going to rally behind its hometown team. The Warhawks have to get the small but vocal crowd in New Orleans on their side in a hurry in this game, as that would really put the pressure on what will be a heavily favored Little Rock squad.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
The two meeting this year between these teams couldn't have been closer. The squads split the duels, but the games were decided by a total of just six points. In both instances, the Warhawks had a great day shooting from the field relative to what we would expect from a UALR team which holds teams under 40 percent shooting for the NCAAB season. As the game stayed tight, it seemed like more and more pressure built up on the Trojans.
That's exactly what has to happen in this one for the upset to happen. Let's not forget that for all of the buzz around UALR, Louisiana-Monroe hasn’t lost a game in over a month either. This is a spot which just screams for an upset on the final day of the regular season. Will it still be enough to Trojans to dance anyway? That's going to be the drama of the afternoon for sure.
Louisiana Monroe 65, Arkansas-Little Rock 62
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