UCLA Bruins vs Tennessee Volunteers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Saturday, 03/22/25

The Tennessee Volunteers and UCLA Bruins will square off in the NCAA Tournament second round on Saturday night at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. Second-seeded Tennessee should be able to advance, but covering 5.5 points may not be a simple proposition. All things considered, my UCLA vs Tennessee pick is on the over with the total set at 131.5. Both teams like to play at a methodical pace, but the Volunteers are capable of speeding things up when necessary. You don’t win 12 games in the high-powered SEC without being able to run and put a bunch of points on the scoreboard every so often. With UCLA hoping to slow things down, I anticipate UT playing faster than it normally does in an effort to keep the Bruins off balance.

Heading into the Big Dance, the Vols featured 4 players averaging double-digits in the points department (Igor Milicic Jr. is down to 9.9 ppg after scoring 5 in Thursday’s victory over Wofford). Chaz Lanier leads the way at 18.0 ppg for an offense that is efficiently run by Zakai Zeigler (7.5 apg). Although UCLA doesn’t score a ton, it does have 5 guys contributing more than 8 points per contest. Both of these programs scored more than 70 points in the opening round and I think they could at least get close to that number on Saturday. It’s a modest total, so I’m backing the over.

UCLA vs Tennessee prediction: Over 131.5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.

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