Furman Paladins vs East Tennessee State Buccaneers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 03/09/26

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It’s championship Monday in the Southern Conference, as the Furman Paladins and East Tennessee State Buccaneers square off for a conference title and an automatic bid for the NCAA Tournament. Both teams fought an uphill battle in the semifinals to get here, trailing by double digits early in the second half. However, both pieced together massive scoring runs to not only reclaim the lead, but win outright. ETSU’s 2-point victory was also their largest lead of the game, and the same thing can be said for Furman – whose 6-point margin of victory was also their largest lead of the game. The Paladins and Bucs collectively outscored their opponents 99-66 in the second half in Sunday’s semifinals. 

Furman and ETSU met twice during the regular season, and the Bucs prevailed both times. The first meeting was in Johnson City, where ETSU needed overtime to prevail at home 75-71. Asa Thomas, Furman’s best shooter, missed that contest. In the second game in Greenville, the Bucs were the ones without a starter  — Blake Barkley — yet they still emerged with a 78-69 victory thanks to a massive perimeter shooting discrepancy. ETSU knocked down 50% of its 24 3-point attempts, while Furman connected on just 18% of its33 attempts. 

I wrote up the UNC Greensboro-Furman preview on Sunday, and we were on UNCG due to the volatility of Furman’s perimeter shooting. Well, that exact volatility showed — as the Paladins made just 1 of their 8 three-point attempts in the first half. Naturally, UNCG took an 11-point lead into halftime before Furman woke up in the second half and connected on 8-of-12 attempts to pull away for the win, although we got the cover on UNCG. 

Along a similar line of thinking, I lean to ETSU in the SoCon Championship on Monday, but I prefer to target the total. With both teams playing their 3rd game in 3 days after battling back from double-digit deficits last night, I expect fatigue to play a factor in this contest — particularly on those perimeter jumpers. If those shots aren’t falling, we should be in for a low-scoring title game, as neither team plays with much tempo. In fact, ETSU and Furman mutually rank outside the top 240 in adjusted tempo over the last month, and they average just 10.4 fast-break points combined per game over their 5 games. Furthermore, these are the 2 most efficient defenses in the conference per KenPom, and both teams have held their league foes under 33% from distance this season. This game figures to be sweaty no matter how you bet it, but I’m going with a classic championship game under in this one.

Furman vs East Tennessee State prediction: Under 139.5 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable to 138.5.

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