Posted at 8:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

SOUTHERN INDIANA -110 ML over VMI

Screaming Eagles Arena - Evansville, IN

8:30 PM ET. The question here is extremely simple: Should VMI be laying points on the road to anybody? It’s a fair, reasonable, necessary question. But if you ask the market, they say yes. And why is that? Because the Screaming Eagles of Southern Indiana have looked dreadful on paper. Go back to last season — USI has won just one of its last nine games and is 2–7–1 against the spread over that stretch. They kicked off their campaign on Wednesday and got blasted by 30 at Butler as a 22.5-point underdog. Stock: fully in the gutter.

VMI, meanwhile, “cruised” to a nearly 70-point win over Johnson & Wales — a small university in North Carolina best known for its culinary program. But because VMI pummeled a school that is better known for cooking Penne Alla Vodka and USI is stuck in a cold spell where nothing has clicked in terms of wins or covers, we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where Southern Indiana is a home dog against a beatable opponent coming off a blowout loss. And under any other circumstance, VMI would never be laying points on the road.

Look at VMI’s profile. They are the very definition of a false favorite. Rewind to the 2024–25 campaign: 15–19 overall, 7–11 in the Southern Conference, and we don’t need to belabor the point about some of the teams they lost to. We’ll just say it plainly — false favorite material. This is a team that loves to play fast, and when they’re rolling, it looks impressive. Sure, they can put up 128 points… when the opposition is sautéing onions between timeouts. Running tempo against Johnson & Wales is one thing, but being expected to do so on the road at a Division I opponent is another.

Southern Indiana can punch above its weight in Evansville? Yes, they can. Need proof? At home, the Screaming Eagles beat SIU-Edwardsville — the eventual Ohio Valley Conference champion and a March Madness participant — and that was USI’s only win during this entire cold stretch. Evansville is just a much tougher trip than the perception suggests and VMI is no juggernaut. Not close. Screaming Eagles.

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