The No. 24 ranked Tennessee Volunteers will return to the comforts of their home arena to battle the No. 13 ranked LSU Tigers off a two-game split against Kentucky and Vanderbilt. LSU will be out to snap a two-game losing streak after dropping a tough one at home to Arkansas and following it up with a hard fought loss and point spread cover at Alabama. These rivals sit neck-and-neck in the current SEC standings with each already absorbing three conference losses. With Auburn, Kentucky and Texas A&M currently separating themselves as the cream of the crop, adding to the loss column will only further inhibit locking down a decent seed come the SEC tourney as competitive this conference is from top to bottom. The Vols should be out for blood in this one however with Rick Barnes’ kids dropping each of the last four meetings including the showdown in Baton Rouge back on January 8 that saw them fall by double-digits as 2.5-point dogs per the closing odds at online sportsbooks.
Take this SEC matchup in live on ESPN at 6 p.m. ET from the Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday, January 22, 2022. BookMaker.eu will have NCAA basketball odds available for this and every game lined up for Saturday’s loaded college basketball schedule.
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Odds Analysis
When these teams collided in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center earlier this month, LSU controlled the pace of play from the opening tip till when the clock read double zeroes. It won the battle of the boards 36-32, shot 47 percent from the field and drained 8-of-18 shots from beyond the arc. Say what?! Heck, it even got away with turning the ball over 16 times and committing a whopping 26 fouls on its own floor. The Vols aren’t a great free throw shooting team, but they’re not terrible either. They were however embarrassing in being unable to make a free throw to save their lives even if you paid them even more for their NIL deals. Their inaccuracy from the charity stripe – 23-of-37- to be exact – is a main reason why they lost a fourth straight to their hated rival.
LSU Tigers
The Tigers “MO” is pretty easy to conceptualize when you break the team down on paper. The defense gives up very little as evidenced by it owning the No. 1 ranked adjusted defensive efficiency and effective field goal percentage in the land. Will Wade’s kids force a ton of turnovers (No. 5), defends the perimeter (No. 2) and hits the offensive glass with reckless abandon (No. 41). And now for some bad; it can’t shoot worth a lick – especially from long range and turns the ball over a ton (No. 270). The overall body of work has resulted in 14 ATS cashes and the under cashing in at a 15-3 clip.
Tennessee Volunteers
Since scoring that huge win over the Arizona Wildcats in late December, the Volunteers have been nothing short of a middling ball club. They split their six played games and alternated wins and losses in each of their last four. They did however bounce back nicely from that throttling at the hands of Kentucky by winning and covering against Vanderbilt in a game that proved to be chippy all the way through. Like LSU, Tennessee relies upon forcing turnovers and playing sound defense. It just doesn’t pull it off nearly as well as evidenced by dropping and failing to cover each of the last four in the recent rivalry.
LSU at Tennessee Betting Prediction
I’m not enamored with either side in this matchup. LSU is due some negative regression in the point spread department after covering a game they shouldn’t have in Tuscaloosa earlier in the week. On the flipside, Tennessee has done nothing to instill my confidence in backing them should linemakers demand they lay a possession or two dependent upon Xavier Pinson returning to the Tigers lineup. I would however be extremely interested if the total reflects the first meetings end result and opens 10 points higher than what it initially closed at. I’d come away shocked if LSU shot 44 percent from long range in the rematch! As such, I’d confidently back the under should it surface in the mid-140s. It probably won’t though.
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