Western Carolina Catamounts

The Catamounts covered each of their last eight spreads in 2025-26, winning seven of those games in a row. The season had started 4-8, with 2 covers in the first 10 lined games.

The finish

From a 87-49 home win over The Citadel in February to the SoCon tournament, Western Carolina won seven straight and covered every one, four of them while getting points: at Chattanooga at +102, at home to Mercer and Furman, and Mercer again in the tournament at +114. The semifinal against East Tennessee State was lost 69-67 and still covered at +2.5.

East Tennessee State

That made three covers in three against East Tennessee State. The first two were outright wins: 72-68 at home at +250 and 90-88 away at +400. With 80-77 at Furman at +340, those games made January the season’s best month on the moneyline: 4-4 straight up but 6.13 units.

Home and road

At home Western Carolina went 10-3, covered 7 of 11 and made 3.48 units, a home return bettered by 36 programs. Away from home the record was 4-12 with 5 covers in 16; just 28 teams in the country had a worse road cover rate. Priced as underdogs, they won 8 of 19 priced games for 4.06 units; as favorites they lost 1.79 over eight.

The start

November and December went 4-8 and cost 4.85 units, with blowout losses at Cincinnati, Duke, Virginia Tech and Georgia. Samford and Wofford each won both meetings, without a Western Carolina cover; Wofford’s first win, 79-74 on New Year’s Eve, closed the 4-8 start. Furman lost both meetings to the Catamounts, both covered, for 4.4 units.

The total

Western Carolina’s games went over 15 times and under 14. They allowed 77.32 points a game, more than all but 91 Division I teams, and scored 78.45.

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