Wagner vs Merrimack Betting Lines in NEC Tournament

The Northeast Conference title game is Tuesday night with second-seeded Merrimack facing No. 6 Wagner with the winner earning the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid. We think that will be Merrimack, which is a solid favorite on the NCAAB odds.

MyBookie College Basketball Betting & Expert Analysis Wagner vs. Merrimack: NEC title game | Week 19 Basketball Lines

How to Bet Wagner at Merrimack NCAA Basketball Odds & TV Info

Where: Hammel Court, North Andover, MA
TV: ESPN2
Stream: ESPN+
Radio: Tunein.com
Opening NCAAB Lines: Merrimack -6.5 (total 122)

Wagner vs. Merrimack Season Series

The teams split two regular-season meetings with the last on Jan. 25 at Wagner and Merrimack prevailing 60-44 behind 19 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals from Jordan Derkack. Freshman Adam Clark scored 16 on 7-for-11 shooting. Julian Brown made three 3-pointers and scored 11 to lead the Seahawks. Wagner is the lone team to earn a road victory at Merrimack this season and is 2-0 under head coach Donald Copeland in North Andover. It’s the first meeting between the schools in the NEC Tournament.

Why Bet on Wagner Seahawks?

CCSU posted its highest win total since 2006-07 with a 21-10 record to finish the campaign. The game featured just three lead changes. Central led for just 3:48, while Wagner led for 32:48. Central lost for the first time as the top seed and is 10-1 all-time as the #1 seed in the NEC Tournament.

The Blue Devils tied the game at 39-39 with 9:06 to play, but never took the lead, as back-to-back buckets by Melvin Council extended the Wagner lead to 52-45 with 2:57 to play. A clutch basket by Javier Ezquerra with 2:23 to play put Wagner up six at 54-48, with Wagner staying calm at the line late to earn the victory.

The Seahawks were led by sophomore Julian Brown’s 20 points, while junior Council and sophomore Keyontae Lewis added 12 points apiece. Junior Tahron Allen was the fourth Seahawk in double figures with 11 points.

Wagner is 9-21 in the postseason in road and neutral sites – this is a true road game. Teams hosting the NEC championship game on their home court have posted a 24-13 record. No team has ever won three road games to win the NEC title.

At 62.6 points per game, Wagner is 8th in the country in scoring defense while also leading the NEC. Defensively, the Seahawks hold teams to 29.7% shooting from long range, good for 10th in the country. Offensively, Wagner is 5-2 when connecting on nine or more threes per game.

Wagner’s 9.9 turnovers per game are 32nd in the country and first in the NEC. As a team Wagner’s assist/turnover ratio of 1.32 leads the NEC. Individually, the Seahawks have two of the top three players in the NEC in assist/turnover ratio in Ezquerra (2nd / 2.10) and Council (3rd / 2.00).

Lewis has scored in double figures in six of Wagner’s last eight games. He has shot 50 percent or better from the field in 13-of-16 NEC regular season games this season and ranked first in the league in field goal accuracy in conference play at 60.9 percent.

The team’s star is Council, who was named first-team All-NEC, the first Seahawk to earn such an honor since Alex Morales in 2022. The league-leader with 35.82 minutes per game, Council entered the NEC Tournament ranked fourth in the league in scoring (15.3 ppg), eighth in rebounding (5.8), sixth in assists (3.61), and third in assist/turnover ratio (2.02).

Bet Wagner Seahawks to Win
College Basketball Vegas Odds

Why Bet on Merrimack Warriors?

Merrimack has just one loss since Jan. 21 and advanced with a 61-51 win over Le Moyne on Saturday. The Warriors and Dolphins met in a conference semifinal for the third straight season they have been conference mates, with the winner of the first two (Le Moyne in 2018 and Merrimack in 2019) going on to win the conference championship.

Le Moyne jumped out to a 13-4 lead through the opening five and one-half minutes. Kaiyem Cleary and Luke Sutherland made three-pointers, Sutherland had a second-chance lay-up and a jumper in the paint and then Darrick Jones Jr. buried a three-pointer. After Merrimack scored five straight points, Darrick Jones Jr. had a fast-break lay-up for a 15-9 lead with 12:05 to play. The Warriors responded with a 19-3 run to take their first double-digit lead of the game and really never looked back. They led by eight at the break. Le Moyne would get close a few times in the second half and trailed by three for the final time with 5:42 left.

Following two empty possessions by each team over the next almost two minutes, Bryan Etumnu recorded a conventional three-point play to kickstart a 9-2 run to push Merrimack’s lead to double-digits again. NEC Rookie of the Year Clark followed with a lay-up and then made four straight free throws and the game was basically over.

NEC Player and Defensive Player of the Year Jordan Derkack registered six points, seven assists, six rebounds and two steals over 38 minutes while hobbled by a lower-leg injury. The victory in Lawler Arena extended the win streak in the building to 12 games dating back to last season.

Merrimack is in the conference title game for a second year in a row. It beat Fairleigh Dickinson 67-66 last year but was ineligible to earn the NEC’s automatic NCAA bid so FDU got it. Derkack is the second player in two years to win both Player and Defensive Player of the Year. He has scored 20+ points 10 times this season and 30+ points twice. He also has two double-doubles on the year. The sophomore guard earned a record-tying seven NEC Player of the Week awards.

Derkack became just the third sophomore in conference history to win the NEC Player of the Year award, joining Sacred Heart’s Cane Broome, who was lauded in 2015-16, and NEC Hall of Famer Myron Walker, the former Robert Morris star who received the honor back in 1991-92.

Bryan Etumnu was named the NEC’s Most Improved Player. Etumnu went from averaging 0.8 points per game a season ago to averaging close to eight points a contest. He is shooting close to 42 percent from beyond the arc in the last six games. Etumnu has become a rim protector for the Warriors. He ranks second in the conference in blocks per game (1.9) and ranks in the top 30 nationally in block rate (9.09).

The Warriors look to punch their first-ever ticket to the NCAA Tournament, while the Seahawks, who will be appearing in their seventh final, seek the program’s first league title and March Madness berth since 2003.

Bet Merrimack Warriors to Win
NCAA Basketball Betting Lines