Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

NCAA Tournament by the odds: Vegas picks and perspective of Sunday’s Elite 8

Chiozza shot

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Florida guard Chris Chiozza (11) puts up a last second 3-point shot to score the game-winning points against Wisconsin in overtime of an East Regional semifinal game of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 25, 2017, in New York. Florida won 84-83.

Both the region that played out closest to form and the one that deviated the furthest from expectations conclude to finalize the 2017 Final Four today.

Favorites went 14-1 straight-up, 10-5 against the spread in the South Region, where No. 1 seed North Carolina lays 2.5 points to No. 2 seed Kentucky in a 2:05 p.m. tip in Memphis. Odds calculated out to a 65 percent chance before the tournament began that either the Tar Heels or Wildcats would come out of the South.

Underdogs owned the East Region, going 9-6-1 against the spread and 6-10 straight-up, leaving No. 4 seed Florida to give No. 7 seed South Carolina 3.5 points on the spread in an 11:20 a.m. game in New York. There was only a 10 percent chance, per the odds, that either Florida or South Carolina reached Phoenix for next week’s Final Four before the tournament began.

Let’s try to determine whether the trends will hold in the final pair of games before all remaining teams are concentrated in one place to play down to a champion.

Read below for Talking Points’ Elite 8 picks and analysis. The blog has gone 34-26-2 against the spread picking every tournament game so far.

No. 7 seed South Carolina plus-3.5 vs. No. 4 seed Florida The best game of the NCAA Tournament so far shouldn’t have been. Florida’s 84-83 victory over Wisconsin on Friday night should have required neither Chris Chiozza’s game-winning buzzer-beating 3-point runner for the Gators nor Zak Showalter’s similar overtime-forcing shot at the end of regulation. It only came to that because Florida coach Mike White decided to nurse a late double-digit lead by trying to run clock instead of continuing to attack. South Carolina built an even larger lead in an eventual 70-50 win over Baylor in Friday’s earlier game at Madison Square Garden, but coach Frank Martin never made the same mistake.

A coaching advantage is an oft-overlooked factor in the NCAA Tournament, and it’s part of the reason why the Gamecocks have a great chance to knock off a team that clobbered them barely more than a month ago. Martin has helped turn South Carolina into something else, something greater than the team that Florida beat 81-66 as 7.5-point favorites in late February. Something greater also than the team that defeated Florida 57-53 as 2-point favorites on their home floor in January.

Adjust those point spreads for a neutral floor, and this number makes sense. But South Carolina may deserve an extra boost for how it’s played. The Gamecocks have played tougher competition than the Gators in every round — Marquette, Duke and Baylor vs. East Tennessee State, Virginia and Wisconsin — and posted a scoring margin 5 points better. Several recent teams have rode defense and a star guard to Final Four runs. No team in the tournament has played better defense than South Carolina, and no player has taken over as consistently as Sindarius Thornwell.

No. 2 seed Kentucky plus-2.5 vs. No. 1 seed North Carolina Thornwell might be the choice for the tournament’s most outstanding player so far, but Kentucky freshman De’Aaron Fox had the most outstanding performance. Fox compiled a training tape-worthy showing for a John Calipari-coached point guard in Kentucky’s 86-75 victory over UCLA as 1.5-point underdogs Friday, getting to the rim at will for 39 points. Fellow star freshman Malik Monk was just as electric for stretches, going 8-for-19 from the floor with 21 points despite several seemingly ill-advised shots. North Carolina won’t be able to beat Kentucky if the pair produce at that level. Heck, the Tar Heels have already failed to do so. In perhaps the best game of the regular season, Kentucky edged North Carolina 103-100 at T-Mobile Arena behind Monk’s 49 points and Fox’s 24 points and 10 assists.

The problem is, Fox and Monk don’t always play to their full potential. These are 19-year-olds, after all, and the Wildcats often frustratingly look like one of the youngest teams in the nation that they are. There’s a reason they were 4-6 against the spread over the last month before the UCLA game. North Carolina is far more reliable in playing to its strengths. The Tar Heels are never going to have a lapse where they fail to rebound. Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks dominate the boards on a nightly basis. Justin Jackson and Joel Berry II seem almost as guaranteed to pace the offense. Kentucky has the better players. North Carolina has the better team, or at least the more trustworthy team. It should make for nothing less than a classic game, and seems like the very definition of a pick’em. A point spread should be unnecessary.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.

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