Are the No. 12 Richmond Spiders an upset threat against the No. 5 Vanderbilt Commodores? March Madness math by Kenneth Massey, along with SB Nation’s own flesh-‘n’-blood Chris Dobbertean, certainly think so, while the systems developed by Joel Sokol and Ken Pomeroy are more comfortable with the upper-seeded Dores. The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight prefers Vandy as well.
Dobbertean thinks Richmond’s versatility will be too much for Vandy, a team used to cumbersome and awkward SEC basketball. It’s a fair point — Vanderbilt has no offense beyond John Jenkins. If he’s not hitting, they’re playing ugly, ugly hoops. But Vandy has four players who score in double digits, while Richmond has just two.
I’m going to pick the favorite here, and not just because my bracket’s littered with upset picks elsewhere.
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