Vanderbilt opens as slight betting favorite over Arkansas in SEC Tournament final
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Vanderbilt and Arkansas both earned double byes in this week’s SEC Tournament by finishing in the top 4 in the SEC during the regular season.
The Commodores and Hogs rewarded themselves, too, with their shorter paths to the promised land that is Sunday’s tournament championship game. After both took care of business in their quarterfinal matchups on Friday, Vanderbilt took down top-seeded Florida in an early semifinal shocker on Saturday before Arkansas outlasted the Cinderella story that was Ole Miss in overtime in the second semifinal.
That pitted the Commodores (26-7) and Razorbacks (25-8) in Sunday’s final, and the betting line for the battle is already out. Vanderbilt is getting the nod so far from DraftKings, which has installed the 4th-seeded Commodores as a 2.5-point favorite over 3rd-seeded Arkansas in the highly anticipated clash.
Unlike sports betting, prediction markets like Kalshi are legal in most U.S. states. Here are the latest SEC Tournament prices for Vanderbilt and Arkansas on Kalshi:
The showdown between Vanderbilt and Arkansas will tip off at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN, as the conference powerhouses will face off in the leadup to the NCAA Tournament brackets being revealed later in the day on Selection Sunday. But before the Commodores and Hogs find out their seedings for next week, they will vie for the SEC Tournament’s top prize as a reward for a long, exhausting week in the Music City.
Vanderbilt might be getting the betting lean so far on Sunday, but the regular-season meeting between the teams was dominated by Arkansas. The Razorbacks took apart the Commodores, 93-68, back on Jan. 20 in Fayetteville, with star freshman Darius Acuff Jr. leading the way that night with 17 points and 5 assists.
Arkansas led by as many as 31 points before cruising to the 25-point home victory. It was a matchup of ranked teams that night, and a few months later it’ll be a matchup of 2 SEC behemoths who are in each other’s way of the ultimate prize in Nashville.
The Selection Sunday brackets can wait a few hours. Early Sunday afternoon in Nashville, Vandy and Arkansas have some business to attend to.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
