UMBC vs Vermont Prediction 1/25/25 College Basketball Picks

The UMBC Retrievers and the Vermont Catamounts meet Saturday in college basketball action from Patrick Gym. Here’s a UMBC vs Vermont prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best UMBC vs Vermont pick. We will examine:

The UMBC Retrievers’ recent form and player performance

The Vermont Catamounts’ recent form and player performance

Recent betting trends and streaks involving the UMBC Retrievers

Recent betting trends and streaks involving the Vermont Catamounts

Recent betting trends in games played between UMBC and Vermont

A summary that ties it all together and produces a favorable betting outcome for the UMBC vs Vermont game

UMBC Retrievers Betting Preview

UMBC didn’t play too badly over the early part of the season, but they’ve been struggling overall since early December. The Retrievers opened up on a 7-5 run over their first dozen outings. The losses in that time came versus Penn State, Saint Peter’s, Hampton, Boston U, and Georgetown. Otherwise, it was wins over Penn State York, Valley Forge, Coppin State, Howard, Morgan State, Towson, and Cairn University. UMBC went just 2-5 in their next seven games though, beating American U and NJIT in that time with losses otherwise versus Georgia Tech, Marist, Binghamton, New Hampshire, and Maine. The result was a 9-10 overall record through the first 19 games of the season for the Retrievers.

In their Thursday matchup versus Albany, UMBC was in trouble after the first half, sporting a 43-28 deficit. The Retrievers fought back to even it up in the second, however, eventually prevailing in overtime 92-87. Leading the team in scoring was Bryce Johnson with 23 points, two rebounds, and two assists. Marcus Banks added 21 points with six boards and three steals, while Ace Valentine had 18 points with three boards.

Vermont Catamounts Betting Preview

Over on the Vermont side, they’ve had a similarly choppy season so far. To their credit, however, the Catamounts have looked better over their last several outings. Vermont kicked things off with a 5-4 run featuring wins over UAB, Buffalo, Delaware, Plattsburgh State, and Northeastern. The losses came otherwise versus Auburn, Merrimack, Iona, and Fairfield. A 1-4 stretch ensued with losses to Brown, Yale, Colgate, and Dartmouth around a lone win over Miami-OH. Vermont would beat Elms College, New Hampshire, UMass Lowell, and Binghamton (with a loss to Bryant) in the next five games for a 10-9 start through the first 19 outings of their campaign.

Matched up against NJIT on Thursday, Vermont jumped out to a 34-20 edge by the break. The Catamounts were outscored 44-34 the rest of the way but managed to hang on for the win 68-64 in the end. Ileri Ayo-Faleye was tops on the team with 27 points, nine rebounds and two assists. Shamir Bogues managed to double up with 14 points, 11 boards, four assists, and three steals in 38 minutes of work on the court as well.

UMBC vs Vermont Prediction

I’ll go with Vermont, but you could call this one either way. The Catamounts didn’t shoot very well in their latest win over NJIT, notching 39.3 percent from the field and a rough 16-of-27 (59.3 percent) from the line. The good news is that Vermont played good defense overall and scored 16 points off 10 Highlanders turnovers. If the Catamounts are going to win this one, it’ll likely be a lower-scoring affair driven by defense. Vermont has scored fewer than 69 points in four of their last five games (a 4-1 run) but they’ve also held opponents to fewer than 65 points in four of those.

As for UMBC, they had a nice comeback win over Albany in their last outing. The Retrievers have scored 73 or more points in nine of their last 10 outings, so they’ll want to keep the pace brisk here. I like Vermont to control things and pull one out, though.