NCAA Tournament by the odds: Las Vegas pick and preview of title game

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, April 6, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Bookmakers may have spent their Easter the same as Christians in praising a higher power.

Duke and Wisconsin helped exorcise a curse that loomed over sports books’ cash supply Saturday night by eliminating Michigan State and Kentucky, respectively, in the Final Four. While there are still shops rooting against the Blue Devils and Badgers winning the NCAA Tournament, the Spartans and Wildcats represented the greatest exposure for casinos to lose money.

Tonight’s national championship between Duke and Wisconsin always makes things easier for bettors. It was the only matchup that could have made for a pick’em point spread, though the line has moved to Wisconsin minus-1 at several sports books.

The blog sits at 34-30-2 against the spread picking every tournament game, an unwinnable long-term strategy, but one implemented here for coverage purposes, after a perfect Final Four. Find Talking Points’ final pick and explanation below.

No. 1 seed Duke plus-1 vs. No. 1 seed Wisconsin

The term “revenge game” doesn’t get thrown around in college basketball betting as much as, say, the NFL, but many gamblers adhere to its tenets just the same. An adage as old as using counter-side miniature pencils to fill out parlay cards suggests betting on the team that lost the first meeting in a rematch. Many swear by the rule for the regular season, but its merits in the NCAA Tournament are more debatable.

The reasons are numerous and obvious. For one, teams that play for a second time in the postseason aren’t often from the same conference, so they haven’t encountered each other in four months or longer. College basketball teams tend to evolve significantly over that long of a stretch. Also, the rematch takes place on a neutral court instead of a home floor. But, most importantly, the sample size is so short that either side can slant the argument in their favor. Someone against the theory, for example, could point out that Duke smashed Michigan State even worse than it did in the first game when the two squared off Saturday in the Final Four. A dissenter surely would bring up the very next game, where Wisconsin impassionedly avenged a haunting loss to Kentucky last year by spoiling the Wildcats’ undefeated season. This year’s NCAA Tournament, by the way, has produced seven rematches where the first game took place within a year. The losers of the first game are 2-5 straight-up and 4-3 against the spread.

All of this is just a long way of saying that Duke’s 80-70 victory over Wisconsin as 4-point underdogs in December shouldn’t be overvalued when handicapping the national championship. It’s wiser to analyze what the two teams have done since and come up with a side through that method.

The Badgers are 28-3 straight-up, 15-5-1 against the spread since their first loss of the season. The Blue Devils are 26-4 straight-up, 17-12-1 against the spread following what clearly was their best win of the season.

Duke has gone on to play far better in the tournament, according to the numbers. The Blue Devils’ point differential is plus-88, more than double the Badgers’ plus-42. The decision comes down to whether Wisconsin’s tougher path outweighs the discrepancy.

Not only did Wisconsin knock off the top two power-rated teams in its past two games, Kentucky and Arizona, but it’s also played the toughest possible opponent in every round. That could be evident by the fact that each of Wisconsin’s past four games have featured tense moments in the final minutes. Duke has encountered nothing of the sort.

Implementing the point spread in its often-referenced role as the great equalizer, the Blue Devils separate themselves further. In covering all five games, they’ve beaten the spread by an average of nine points per game in the tournament. Wisconsin has beaten the number in its past three after going 0-2 against the spread in the opening weekend, but that adds up to beating the line by just two points per game.

The nation has marveled at Wisconsin duo Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker, and, sure enough, the two are combining to average 10 more points per game than they did in the regular season. They’re shooting 3 percent more efficiently from the floor, from 54 percent to 57 percent. Duke’s defense has improved more drastically, going from an opponent field goal percentage of .421 in the regular season all the way down to .372 in the tournament. And it’s got a player who’s raised his offensive game even higher in Justice Winslow, who’s scoring three more points per game and shooting 5 percentage points better from the field.

With some sports books clinging to pick’em, this goes down as the most evenly matched championship game ever. It could go either way.

But after picking Duke from the start of the year, there’s no reason to jump off now. Wisconsin has probably been the better story. Duke has definitely been the better team.

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.