UL Monroe (1-13) is a joke. They've beaten one team this entire year: #339 in the country Nichols State. And then they lost to them two weeks later at home. They are horribly inefficient and sloppy on both sides of the ball, and I can literally find no compliment whatsoever to give them. They lost to unranked "Harding" at home for christ's sake....
I guess the best compliment I could give UL Monroe is that they're in the top half of the country at 3pt%, and they don't have an AWFUL strength of schedule (#169 in country). But even though they're "relatively" efficient at 3s, they dont even really rely on them, as they amount to less than 30% of their total point distribution. And what good is strength of schedule when you can't do anything with it?
Of the 13 games against D-1 opponents that Monroe has played this year, only 3 of them have NOT been double digit losses. And the two that were close were against #277 Southeastern Louisiana (?) and #247 Western Kentucky (3 and 4 point losses). That Western Kentucky game was the "conference home opener" and it was just played on Thursday, and resulted in a 76-71 overtime loss.
Monroe hasn't even had a game go into overtime since 2009. They are so, so awful. Preseason poll ranked them to finish 12th (dead last) in the Sun Belt and #314 in all of NCAA, and I'm sure that a current poll would merit the same results.
I don't know how they can be expected to pick their shit up and get it together against a half decent Arkansas St. team.
What about Arkansas St? They're pretty decent for a Sun Belt team. They were projected to finish 4th in the conference, behind very respectable teams such as Denver, Middle Tenn St, and FAU. They're 212 in the country right now, but this is likely undervaluing them.
Arkansas St. is 6-8, but they've played the #53 overall strength of schedule, and 6 of those losses come to such top 100 teams as Murray St, Missouri St., Ohio, Louisville, Saint Louis, Kent State. 4 of those 6 were played at the opponents arena, so they are quite familiar with road games. I'm pretty sure that after you play away games at those arenas, you won't get the butterflies to take on "UL-Monroe" at their home court.
The other two losses that Ark St had was a 3 point loss @ #123 Lamar and a 4 point OT loss @ #189 Austin Peay. Again, respectable.
In terms of stats, there's no much to look at. I said that UL Monroe is not horrible at 3pt%, but still not really worried about it. Arkansas St. has not been efficient at defending 3s, but that's definitely been inflated by the fact that theyve played very good 3 pt shooting teams, i.e. #5 in the country at draining 3s Murray State and #6 in the country St. Louis.
Monroe has the #335 defense in the country. They don't force turnovers, can't defend the long ball, cant rebound, block, or steal. Arkansas St is not incredible on offense, but they're certainly good enough. and theyre #53 in the country at 3pt%, and like i said, Monroe is horrible at defending the 3 (#291 in the coutnry at efficiency at defending 3pt%). I really don't think Arkansas St will need to rely on 3 pointers though, but it's a fun fact i suppose. Also, Arkansas St is actually pretty dang good at defense.
Dont see how you can't love Arkansas St. -3.5
gL all write-ups to come
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