Did you have the Santa Clara Broncos in your CIT office pool?
The school
that gave us Steve Nash and Kurt Rambis now has a national championship under
its belt after beating the Iona Gaels 76-69 on Wednesday. It was a major upset,
too: Iona was favored by 9.5 points on the basketball betting lines.
This is Santa Clara's first men's
basketball championship of any kind – the Broncos made the Final Four once, in
1952, where they lost to Phog Allen's Kansas Jayhawks.
Intrepid
handicappers looking for betting value outside the NCAA Tournament have just two
more opportunities to play.
The NIT wraps up Thursday with the Alabama
Crimson Tide (+1.5) facing the Wichita State Shockers, and the CBI championship
will be awarded on Friday when the Creighton Bluejays meet the Oregon Ducks with
their best-of-three series tied 1-1.
After that, it's nothing but March
Madness. Here's our latest 10-spot of useful stats and factoids to help you get
to the pay window.
No. 11 Virginia Commonwealth vs. No. 8 Butler (6:09
p.m. ET, CBS)
1. The Rams have covered each of their last nine Tournament
games as the underdogs. The NCAAB odds for Saturday's matchup have VCU pegged as
a 2.5-point dog.
2. Virginia Commonwealth is No. 12 in Division I in
steals, taking the ball from their opponents on 12.6 percent of their
possessions. Butler ranks No. 208 out of 345 teams at 8.9 percent, below the
Division I average of 9.4 percent.
3. The Bulldogs are 15-2 ATS in their
last 17 games on neutral ground, as well as 17-5 ATS in their last 22 Tournament
games overall and 9-3 ATS in four years under coach Brad Stevens.
4.
Butler ranks No. 335 in the nation with a block rate of 4.5 percent, less than
half the league average of 9.2 percent. VCU is No. 163 at 9.0 percent.
5.
If you add up the four seeds left at the Final Four (11+8+4+3), you get the
biggest number the NCAA Tournament has ever seen at 26.
Get your March
Madness VCU vs. Butler odds at Bodog's online sportsbook. MADNESS WOULD BE
MISSING IT.
No. 4 Kentucky vs. No. 3 Connecticut (8:49 p.m. ET,
CBS)
6. The Wildcats are 16-5-1 ATS in their last 22 games against Big
East opponents. They beat the No. 5 West Virginia Mountaineers 71-63 in this
year's Round of 32, cashing in as 3.5-point favorites.
7. Kentucky ranks
No. 4 in Division I with an average height of 6-foot-6.4. Point guard Brandon
Knight is 6-foot-3, two inches taller than UConn counterpart Kemba
Walker.
8. The Huskies have covered nine of their last 10 non-conference
games. They're also 7-2 ATS in their last nine March Madness matchups.
9.
Walker is No. 16 in among qualified Division I players, committing just 1.5
fouls per 40 minutes. He also draws 6.4 fouls per 40 minutes, or No. 61 overall.
10. Kentucky coach John Calipari is one of two people to lead three
different teams to the Final Four, starting with UMass in 1996 and Memphis in
2008. Rick Pitino (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) is the
other.
Get your March Madness Kentucky vs. UConn odds at
Bodog. MADNESS WOULD BE MISSING IT.
| Kyle Hunter | |
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