| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | +2.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 8 | 4 | 0.00 | +7.92 |
| Season to Date | 18 | 9 | 0.00 | +17.38 |
#726 ARKANSAS +3 over Kentucky
7:00 PM EST. The Wildcats are no longer the elite squad that the market thinks they are. Regardless of whatever rationale plaudits, analysts and backers will use to support their wagers, the ‘Cats have shown a far more humanistic element to them this year. When comparing this year’s team to last year’s, it is night and day when you consider the supernatural run that John Calipari’s crew was on just a year ago. The radical change has been mainly in part to an unprecedented six players moving on to be selected in the 2015 NBA Draft. Kentucky is now in re-building mode but most will see this line as a steal given the reputation that Calipari and Kentucky have carved out for themselves on the national stage.
The ‘Cats are coming in here off a tough 75-70 road loss against Auburn, a game that typically would have been a walk in the park for Kentucky. Auburn entered the match on an 18-game losing streak against the ‘Cats and below .500 at the onset of the match. It is simply a direct reflection of the effect that this mass exodus of talent has had on the Kentucky program. Kentucky has already suffered four defeats. They lost at UCLA and LSU. They also lost at home to Ohio State. Three of their four losses have been on the road and Arkansas has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Big Blue. The ‘Cats are currently are on a two-game winning streak against Arkansas but that was achieved at the hands of a historic squad that dissected every basketball club in its path over the course of the 2015-16 regular season. Now with Kentucky coming back down to Earth and this being the first collision between both squads this year, Kentucky has never been more vulnerable. Previous to Kentucky’s brush with immortality last year, the Hogs had established dominance over Big Blue by winning three straight against this college basketball blue blood.
Arkansas is sporting a sparkling 8-1 record at home. Arkansas’ sole defeat at home was at the hands of Mercer in overtime and while Mercer may not be a SEC club that the Hogs face on an annual basis, the Bears are certainly a talented team, currently sporting an excellent 14-4 record. Let’s forget all of the above for a second and focus elsewhere. We’re not going to sugarcoat this and suggest for a second that the Razorbacks are the superior team here. After all, Arkansas has played a weak schedule and they’re not dominating. There are times in every sport where recognizing a trap game is just as important as recognizing a big advantage to one side or the other. Thursday night is typically a night when the mid-majors and smaller conferences go head to head. It’s not like last night where there were a slew of ranked teams and power conference teams facing off against one another, thus giving this market plenty of recognizable games to choose from. On a Thursday night with no football, the attention now shifts to NCAAB with this game sticking out like a sore thumb among many others that nobody cares about. The oddsmakers are fully aware of the attention this game will get in the market. They idea behind setting the number is to attract equal action on both sides to make it a 50/50 proposition. The oddmakers could have set this game at -5 or -6 in an attempt to attract equal action. At -2½ (that’s where it opened), the linesmakers were 100% aware that this game would attract one-sided action and they not only welcomed it, they embraced it. That’s all the info we need to pull the trigger on this contrarian side.
Note: We’re pretty sure we’ll get more points by game time so we suggest waiting until later to pull the trigger. I’ll update this around 6:30 or 6:45 PM to be officially in on this wager. Pick: Arkansas +3 (no bets but will update closer to game time).
