Southland Conference Betting: Texas-Arlingong vs Stephen F Austin

Whenever you want to evaluate these teams from the "off" conferences, you want to take a look at what they did in their non-conference games against good competition.

But when we look at Texas-Arlington's roster of foes, we see losses by 31 points to Baylor and 19 to Michigan State, two points to North Texas (the newly-crowned Sun Belt champion) and then teams like Dallas Baptist, Texas Wesleyan, Texas-Dallas, Utah Valley State, Houston Baptist and Texas Permian Basin.

College Basketball Betting Odds: STEPHEN F. AUSTIN -3

Here are some of the NCAA basketball betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

• UTA has won eight of its last 12 games SU
• SFA has won 10 of its last 13 games SU
• SFA has had the shooting edge in four of the last six meetings
• SFA has hit more three-pointers in four of the last six meetings

UTA relies heavily on the Southland Conference player of the year, Marquez Haynes, who was one of the leading scorers in the country (22.8 ppg) as well as a 42% shooter from the three-point arc.

He had 22 points in the previous meeting with the Lumberjacks in a 72-65 defeat. There is not a lot of muscle on this team; no one to intimidate and no effective shot-blocking.

While UTA finished 8-8 to finish fifth in the West division, Stephen F. Austin won the East division of the Southland outright with a record of 11-5. The 'Jacks went to the NCAA's last year as the conference representative, and appeared in the NIT two season ago.

They have won regular season titles in this Southland two years running.

They had the second best record in the league this year, behind Sam Houston State.

Arlington lost its last three regular season games and gave up 48% shooting in those games. They encounter an SFA team that allows just 60 points per game, playing a lot more pace-oriented game than most opponents. That's nothing unusual for coach Danny Kaspar, whose team was second in the country in points allowed in the previous two years. 

This disciplined style has caused headaches for some opponents. After being routed in the opener against Minnesota, they lost a two-point decision to Texas Tech and got to within three points of Arkansas, before beginning conference play.

Tiny (5'3") point guard Eric Bell, who didn't shoot much but had a 2.7-to-1 ratio of assists to turnovers, is iffy for all of this post-season play, having been knocked out of a February 24 game against Texas State with a concussion. Bell is so much smaller than the opponents that he routinely takes a physical pounding, and it did finally catch up to him.

Without Bell, this is a bigger team, and leading scorer Eddie Williams (13.4 ppg) must handle the ball more,.

This is a team that has a little more in the power department than UTA, and even though they have very little depth, they do have three starters who shoot better than 50% from the field. They have the big fundamental edges, and we'll lay the three points in NCAA basketball betting. 

JAY'S PLAY: STEPHEN F. AUSTIN -3 ***

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)