VCU vs Rhode Island -1.5 O/U 136
A little A-10 action. I predict a Rams victory here! Ok enough with the dumb jokes. VCU comes into this game 10-7-1 ATS while Rhode Island is 7-10. Here is a schedule where both these teams are coming off 2 wins in a row and both teams played on Saturday so no spot situation. When this line opened up at at VCU -1 the numbers guys quickly put money on the home dog Rhode Island making them into a favorite. Lets get into the nuts and bolts here shall we. VCU is a top 55 team on Kenpom while Rhode island is top 118. The Rhode Island Rams best win was against West Virginia back in Mid December but haven’t beaten anybody in the top 74 this year. The other Rams played a much harder schedule beating Temple, Texas, Dayton and only losing to top 4 Virginia by 8. The true key to this game for me is that VCU has a top 5 defense in all of basketball holding teams to 42.2 effective FG percentage and number 4 against the 3. Rhode Island is a terrible shooting team ranking 286 in effective FG percentage at 47.4 and 347th in 3 point percentage. Rhode island has a half way decent defense but the kicker is that not only do they miss a lot of shots, they are also not very tall ranking 236th in height. VCU Ranks 84th in height and should be able to stop this team in the Paint. As long as VCU slows down Rhode Islands best player in Jeff Dowtin, I like VCU to win this game outright and I also like the under 136
VCU +1.5 and under 136
