Advertisement

NCAA basketball betting: Arkansas State misses dunk at the buzzer to cost bettors

Pete Truszkowski
·2 min read

The Sun Belt conference tournament got underway on Thursday. It projects as one of the more compelling and wide-open NCAA conference tournaments. The first round got underway with No. 6 seed Arkansas State going head-to-head with No. 11 Louisiana-Monroe.

March has just begun, but we already have a bad beat that will be hard to shake.

Late game drama

The Red Wolves opened as 5.5-point favorites at BetMGM over the Warhawks when the betting lines were first posted before the tournament. By tip-off, Arkansas State moved to a six-point favorite.

It was a valiant effort from the underdogs. UL-Monroe led by three at halftime and actually had a six-point lead with 4:24 left in the game when Andre Jones made a pair of free throws. However, the Red Wolves would answer.

Led by Norchad Omier, the Sun Belt conference's Player of the Year, Arkansas State went on a 15-2 run to take an 81-74 lead with seconds left in the game. Just like that, UL-Monroe went from leading the game to failing to cover the spread.

CHAMPAIGN, IL - NOVEMBER 12: Norchad Omier #15 of the Arkansas State Red Wolves grabs a rebound during the first half against the Illinois Fighting Illini at State Farm Center on November 12, 2021 in Champaign, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
Norchad Omier had the best game of his NCAA career, and then delivered bettors a bad beat. (Michael Hickey/Getty Images)

Then everything went haywire.

Elijah Gonzales of UL-Monroe threw up a 3-pointer from the parking lot with 4.1 seconds left. Somehow it went in. The Warhawks had cut the lead to four points and were within the number. It was an annoying shot for Arkansas State bettors, but buzzer-beaters impact betting lines almost every night. Nothing too crazy, right?

Wrong.

In order to break the pressure from UL-Monroe, the Red Wolves threw the inbounds pass all the way down court to Omier, who had already scored a career-high 35 points.

Now, if Omier decided to dribble out the clock, this wouldn't be as bad. However, he wanted to put an exclamation point on his impressive performance with a dunk. Then, this happened:

If you had Arkansas State at -5.5, the missed dunk cost you a win. If you had them at -6, you missed a chance to earn a push. The ridiculous 3-pointer a few seconds earlier was only salt in the wound.

This won't be the last bad beat we see in March, I assure you of that.