north carolina - CLNS Media

This one’s the money game. Duke, North Carolina, and a chance to play in a National Championship. It doesn’t get any better than this. On top of this – and tell me if you’ve heard this before – it’s the first time Duke and UNC have ever faced off in the NCAA tournament. Somehow, some way, the biggest rivals in college basketball history have never faced off in the postseason.

Duke is riding high in Coach K’s final season, and it’s pretty much all thanks to Paulo Banchero. Banchero, a projected top five NBA draft pick, has been the anchor for the Blue Devils this season averaging 17.1 points per game. Duke is the current favorite to win the tournament at +145.

North Carolina meanwhile, wasn’t even supposed to be here. An 8-seed in the East region, the Tar Heels made it through Marquette, Baylor, and UCLA before taking down 15-seed Saint Peters 69-49 in the Elite Eight. Head coach Hubert Davis taking UNC to the championship in his first season in Chapel Hill.

Prediction/Pick

I’ve been hot and cold on the Blue Devils during the tournament, but it’s time to buy in. This just feels like a team of destiny in Coach K’s final season. Duke gets past their rival and makes it to their first national championship since 2015.

Prediction: Duke 81 – UNC 75

Side: Duke -4

Total: OVER 151.5

Make sure to follow Mike on Twitter @mikekadlick, and follow @CLNSMedia for the latest up-to-date Boston Sports news!

Also, be sure to check out our new sports betting Twitter account @CLNSBetting for all the latest odds and content from CLNS Media.

Use code CLNS50 for 50% off your first deposit at Betonline.ag.

The post NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four – Duke vs. North Carolina – Betting Odds, Preview, and Prediction appeared first on CLNS Media.

Updated NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Odds Heading into the Final Four

Mike Kadlick — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 14:29:58 +0000

To be brutally honest, the Elite Eight was not the greatest showing of basketball. Outside of Houston vs. Villanova, each game was a relative blowout and there was not much excitement involved at all.

However, it brought us to this coming weekend, where we get four blue bloods matching up for a chance to win a National Championship.

Who Will Win Each Region of the NCAA Tournament?

March Madness – Betting Odds and Ends For the Round of 64

NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Betting Odds Heading into the Sweet Sixteen

Sweet Sixteen West Region – Gonzaga vs. Arkansas and Texas Tech vs. Duke – Betting Predictions and Picks

Sweet Sixteen South Region – Michigan vs. Villanova and Arizona vs. Houston – Betting Predictions and Picks

Sweet Sixteen Midwest Region – Providence vs. Kansas and Iowa State vs. Miami – Betting Predictions and Picks

Sweet Sixteen East Region – St. Peter’s vs. Purdue and North Carolina vs. UCLA – Betting Predictions and Picks

NCAA Men’s Basketball Elite Eight Houston vs. Villanova and Arkansas vs. Duke – Betting Predictions and Picks

The four blue bloods are, of course, Duke, Kansas, Villanova, and North Carolina. Here are their odds to win the tournament heading into Saturday’s Final Four. As always, all odds and NCAA March Madness betting content is powered by our friends at BetOnline.ag:

Odds to Win the Tournament

Duke +140

Kansas +190

North Carolina +475

Villanova +500

There’s been a lot of talk about the coaches in this tournament. Saint Peter’s Shaheen Holloway made a name for himself with the Peacocks, Kansas’ Bill Self and Villanova’s Jay Wright are back in the Final Four, and – of course – it’s Coach K’s final season coaching the Duke Blue Devils.

However, it’s the players that make this whole thing happen. Here are BetOnline’s odds on who will win the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award:

Most Outstanding Player

Paulo Banchero +250

Ochai Agbaji +400

Collin Gillespie +900

Jermaine Samuels +900

Armando Bacot +1000

Remy Martin +1000

AJ Griffin +2000

Brady Manek +2000

Caleb Love +2000

Christian Braun +2000

Jeremy Roach +2500

Mark Williams +2500

Fabian White Jr. +4000

Caleb Daniels +5000

R.J. Davis +5000

Wendell Moore Jr. +5000

Duke’s Paulo Banchero (+250) is the best player still standing. If the Blue Devils win it all, he’s almost certain to win the award. However there are plenty of long shots on the board that can win MOP – so long as Duke doesn’t win.

Villanova’s Collin Gillespie (+900), Kansas’ Remy Martin (+1000), and UNC’s Brady Manek (+2000), are my favorite bets for the teams outside of Duke. These three players are all capable of having a monster weekend to lead their teams to a championship, and would be completely deserving of the Most Outstanding Player award.

Keep it here on CLNSMedia.com all week for betting previews and predictions for both Final Four games and Monday’s championship game.

Make sure to follow Mike on Twitter @mikekadlick, and follow @CLNSMedia for the latest up-to-date Boston Sports news!

Also, be sure to check out our new sports betting Twitter account @CLNSBetting for all the latest odds and content from CLNS Media.

Use code CLNS50 for 50% off your first deposit at Betonline.ag.

The post Updated NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Odds Heading into the Final Four appeared first on CLNS Media.

ACC Tournament: Grayson Allen’s butt bump overshadows epic finish as North Carolina tops Duke 74-69

Bobby Manning — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 02:14:12 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zOUsCzXBMs

NEW YORK — The first question for Grayson Allen in the post-game presser following another North Carolina-Duke classic wasn’t about his potential game-tying three-pointer with three seconds remaining.

It was about his flagrant one foul on Cameron Johnson, dubbed by one media member as a “butt bump.” Allen had just missed a shot in the high post with one minute left in the first half, Kenny Williams scored running in transition to put Carolina up 32-27, but in the back court Cameron Johnson went crashing into the hardwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0p4yowLe8

Allen, notoriously booed across college basketball for his tripping incidents in years past, appeared to stick his hip out and check Johnson as he ran back in transition. The refs deemed it flagrant, allowing UNC to add two more points to their transition layup.

UNC carried that momentum into halftime, up 36-31 and eventually winning 74-69 following a dominant second-half and chaotic finish Roy Williams had never seen before. His team now moves on to play #1 Virginia in the ACC title game tomorrow.

“Yeah, they got a fast break and I bumped him and fouled him,” Allen said flatly.

Then head coach Mike Krzyzewski jumped in, “I was surprised there was stoppage. But we’ll go with the call and move forward.”

Coach K said the play did not decide the outcome of the game, Allen didn’t respond when pressed about UNC’s Garrison Brooks’ locker-room statement that Allen’s foul was not unintentional.

Instead, Krzyzewski shut the controversy down.

“You don’t want any foul in a game,” he said. “So that was another foul in a game. Do you think that that was the only time someone was hipped in the game? If you look in the low post, that’s going on all the time, so it happened at half court, they got it, it’s done.”

What did determine the outcome were a sporadic few closing minutes when the Blue Devils returned from a double-digit deficit that the Tar Heels mounted on them with overwhelming second-half offense.

Over the final five and a half minutes Allen nailed two threes, Gary Trent added another, Marvin Bagley swished a pair of free throws and Wendell Carter scored inside from Allen two toss a 72-56 Carolina lead in the trash. Duke pulled within three, but with four fouls on Allen and 11 seconds left they needed some help.

They pressed full-court, forcing Johnson to dribble across pressure and as UNC tried to move the ball around to escape pressure a tough pass flew at Theo Pinson on the sideline. He caught it, Allen stood in front of him and could have fouled, which would have been the end of his night, but Pinson fumbled the ball out-of-bounds.

So instead, Allen lined up to take one of the biggest shots of his career, but heavy pressure on the left wing forced an errant heave three that didn’t come close to landing.

“We had a chance to draw something out,” he said. “I had a ball screen from the big on both sides and was trying to get a three off to tie it up. Initially went for the pump fake to try to get him in the air, but he didn’t commit to come foul me, so then tried to get up a shot up towards the rim, make it, or hopefully one of the big guys would get a rebound.”

Coach K said UNC switching defensively around the screens did the play in.

On the UNC side, Joel Berry and Pinson said they held no ill-will toward Allen. Berry, visibly chatting at half-court during the flagrant free throws, said him and Allen have a good, long-standing relationship.

“I told (him), they’re always going to get on him about that,” Berry said. “Any little trip he does, if he puts a finger on somebody, you know they’re going to react. So it’s always a joking thing with me and Grayson. I don’t have any hatred towards him. We’re good friends. We’re both from Florida, and we played with each other. But I just told him that you’ve just got to watch yourself because anything you do like that you know they’re going to get on you about. That’s why we laughed it off.”

Pinson closed the game at the free throw line, saying he felt extra pressure to convert there after the turnover that gave Duke the final shot in the first place. Now they’ll move on to Virginia, a top-tier offense crashing into one of the best defenses ever to decide the ACC.

“Luke loses a dribble on the baseline. Theo drops the ball out of bounds. Kenny is coming to pick up a loose ball in the backcourt one time, I’m screaming no, no, no, because their guy clearly threw it backcourt and he falls and knocks the ball out of bounds,” head coach Roy Williams said. “You can’t make that crap up. It’s just something that happens … I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Now, they’ll face 20 second possessions defensively and a swarming defense that Williams called a coach’s dream, having gone from unranked preseason to number-one.

“We’ve got to be tough enough to bend our knees and stay in a defensive stance long enough to get good shots from all over,” he said. “We’ll have a chance.”

They’ll tip at 8:30 to decide a new champion of the ACC with Duke eliminated,

The post ACC Tournament: Grayson Allen’s butt bump overshadows epic finish as North Carolina tops Duke 74-69 appeared first on CLNS Media.

ACC Tournament: Virginia’s unflappable defense on to the title game

Bobby Manning — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 22:43:27 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH0_6JCnX-Y

“Anybody who has to watch this for 40 games a year needs a f—ing raise,” said a media member crossing out of halftime.

He had just witnessed what teams across the ACC have crashed into all season when they meet Virginia, the pack-line defense. The sight of it symbolizes near-certain loss and inevitable control over the pace of the game.

It even took them two timeouts in succession with 26 seconds left to get their final in-bounds across. Everything, as it has been all year, happened slowly and methodically on their way to victory.

Once again, a team saw early success and a late run against it. Momentary success never overtook the whole body of work. Virginia’s bent plenty, but broken only once (and they still almost won that loss) as they roll on to the ACC title game with a 64-58 win over Clemson.

“They’re extremely big, long and athletic,” Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said. “I don’t think people realize — like they’re bigger than we are at almost every position. Every position you look at their guys and look at our guys, a couple inches difference, five to ten pounds, strength. And that’s true of a lot of teams that they play against.”

It’s no fun to many watching, but it’s brutally effective. On a night where Duke and North Carolina, long kings of the conference, dueled in the nightcap, Virginia’s built a throne atop college basketball by throwing flashy basketball in the trash.

Clemson dug into them early, setting the edges with three-pointing shooting to allow Gabe DeVoe to enter the post on dribble-drives and finish inside. The Tigers built a seven-point lead in the first ten minutes and hit two early threes, but in a sign of unavoidable carnage to come, Virginia held a six shot advantage in FGA.

Over the final 9:33 of the first half, the Cavaliers cut off any chance of Clemson making a shot. All the Tigers mustered were three free throws on a corner three-point heave, a call that elicited a shout from Isaiah Wilkins, their defensive centerpiece. “F—,” an explicit sentiment that underlined the perfectionism of that unit in the midst of a 19-3 run to close the half up 32-23.

“They do a good job on ball screens,” Devoe, who shot 3-of-9, said. “They’re always in good positions. Just make you make tough shots. I had a couple good looks, and they weren’t able to go in today.”

Stagnancy is rare on the pack line during its best runs of stops, Mamadi Diakite kept his feet shuffling as he manned the right wing on defense, steps from the free-throw line. Ty Jerome sprinted around him to pick up Aamir Simms as the ball swung to him up top. Simms tried to break into the paint, where they’d been successful before, but Diakite rotated in and cut off Clemson’s offensive life.

Jerome picked up the miss, pushed across half-court, and eventually Kyle Guy buried a three on the left wing.

“You can throw it inside and he’s so quick off the floor and he can manufacture some interior scoring,” Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said of Diakite.

“Then it loosens it up for our perimeter guys. He’s quick defensively, so he’s coming in the right direction. He’s still kind of new to the game, and every experience he gets is valuable. But for sure interior scoring, inside out balancing it is big.”

That full-court involvement, while emphasizing the heart of the defense on the interior is at the heart of Virginia’s defense, that happens to grind out full shot clocks and cut down on possessions per game. Over the final 9:33 of the half, Clemson ran just 14 sets on offense.

The Tigers regained a semblance of stability behind Thomas, planted in the post. He jammed into the middle for two layups, hauled in a missed three off the boards, turning and hitting a reverse layup and the foul.

But as far as outright entry, Virginia continued to build a wall around the post. While the offense transitioned its stops into a smooth hooking floater from Diakite and a one-handed slam on the run.

With 13 minutes remaining, Jerome cut off a pass into the paint and ran to the opposing paint, hitting a crossover and swinging to Guy for a three above the arc. UVA led 12. A player outside of Thomas in the middle wouldn’t make a shot for Clemson until the nine-minute mark, when Devoe swung a pass out to Shelton Mitchell on the right wing for three.

Virginia, picking up a pair of turnovers on their own attempts at feeds into the low post, entered the bonus with over eight minutes remaining, breaking up Clemson possessions with fouls on the floor.

The Tiger would pull within five points, Thomas with two free throws and another bucket sitting around the rim. He scored 15 after a two-point first half, but Jack Salt ripped the game back toward Virginia dominance, cutting off two or three bodies on hard screens and following up his jump shot with a one-handed floater inside on the roll.

After fans chanted his name coming off the floor, Salt said “they were probably surprised I was scoring so much.”

Hall, rotating under the basket, set the play up by stripping Reed on the baseline and tossing the ball back in-bounds to a teammate as he fell out.

Salt shut it down again, after Reed and Hall traded threes he tipped in a miss around the rim to solidify the lead at seven. He flipped a cross-court pass out of the press, surely heading for Virginia’s bench, back in-bounds to Guy, and Virginia eventually worked the ball left to Jerome where he drilled a long two off a crossover with the shot clock ticking away.

“We’re here because of guys like (Salt) who are servants,” Bennett said. “Who screen, run the floor, rebound, and do whatever you ask. And he’s unbelievable … that’s the way he was raised. And that’s how it is probably in New Zealand, right, you just fight and you don’t back down.”

The Cavaliers led 61-53, never looking back and once again bending within several possessions in the second half but never surrendering the lead and once again, not losing. Ugly or not, they’ve only dropped one as they cruise into the ACC title game Saturday.

The post ACC Tournament: Virginia’s unflappable defense on to the title game appeared first on CLNS Media.

Lack of depth undermines Syracuse in final showing before Selection Sunday

Bobby Manning — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 03:14:11 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64HvOg2NjEk

The goalpost always moves. Syracuse held little promise of an NCAA Tournament berth before the season. Those chances faltered more as Bourama Sidibe developed tendinitis, Geno Thorpe departed and Howard Washington tore his ACL.

But Syracuse utilized its strengths to create expectations. Even as its deficiencies displayed vividly, hope of March Madness grew through road wins, a top-25 win to close the season and Oshae Brissett’s sensational freshman year. Even though foul trouble to one player alone could clearly derail any hope of SU beating any opponent.

At any given moment Syracuse’s podium, playing five or six players deep at maximum and running isolations for three players who averaged playing an entire game’s worth of minutes could crumble.

On Wednesday against North Carolina, it came crashing down in a 78-59 loss eliminating them from the ACC Tournament.

Paschal Chukwu, the core defensive anchor of this year’s 2-3 zone, picked up three quick fouls in the first half. He’d foul out with 16 minutes remaining in the second half. Sidibe, hobbled and in foul trouble himself, played the brunt of minutes left over.

“Every point we could get in the middle I wanted to put pressure on them to make a good play and keep attacking,” Theo Pinson said. “We got the call, so it was good on our part … having (Chukwu out) the game was huge for us.”

Roy William’s team had seen Chukwu play a few weeks ago, knew he’d contest everything they shot inside at him, and used that to draw him into foul trouble. The defense collapsed, leaving Brissett open to hit five three-pointers, but little for anyone else.

Frank Howard, good on ball-control all season and putting turnover-plagued seasons behind him, threw the ball away seven times and fed UNC’s transition game all night.

“They did a great job of flooding the paint and staying in front of us,” he said. “They’re a great defensive team. They play the ball screen very well, and yeah, just made it difficult for us.”

For him and Tyus Battle, sporting scowls in the post-game press conference, 40 minutes called regularly. That was on Wednesdays and Saturdays, this time Boeheim called for 80 minutes in less than 48 hours.

It was too much, but he had no choice. They had no bodies behind them and only they provided hope of any offensive facilitation.

‘It’s not just the 40 minutes, Boeheim said. “But when … you have to make plays off the dribble, which we really have to do, it takes an extra toll on you.”

They had no post game, he added, he mentioned four perimeter players and a defensive big men. That’s five players. When one went down with fouls, it was always going to be all over for the Orange.

It’s surprising it didn’t happen more often, but somewhat fitting it closed out SU’s tourney run. The team’s greatest limiting factor became its cap on its potential in Brooklyn, and could prevent a bid into March Madness. But as Boeheim said for the second straight day, Syracuse won many games with a top-20 strength of schedule, built a top-50 RPI in the nation and topped two high-tier opponents on the road.

With less, they managed to do more this year than last and definitively have a better resume than last year’s group did. Only, that relation doesn’t matter. Nothing’s in SU’s control now as they return to watch the selection show at the Carmelo Anthony Center on Monday.

“These guys, considering everything, I think they’ve done everything we could ask them to do,” Boeheim finished.

“I can’t fault anything this group has done.”

The post Lack of depth undermines Syracuse in final showing before Selection Sunday appeared first on CLNS Media.