Recent Play Details

Tennessee (2:40PM ET CBS) – The Round of 32 rolls on and this game will actually start our day with an early tip from the East Region when the #4 seed Tennessee Volunteers take on the #5 seed Duke Blue Devils at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.

I’m just not buying Duke, I know they haven’t lost since mid-February (10 straight wins) and they definitely have been better (than they were when they were dropping games to teams like Wake Forest, NC State and Virginia Tech) but I think this is a step up in class and an opponent style of play that doesn’t suit Duke here.  Duke ran through a very watered down ACC and their only wins of note on this current run are against Virginia (unique style that Duke has had success against) and a Miami team that doesn’t defend AT ALL and lost main rim protector Norchad Omier a minute into the game.  Tennessee does defend and the Volunteers do it as well as any team in the country as Tennessee enters play at #2 in the country in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (KenPom).  Tennessee is also a Top 20 rebounding team which negates the biggest advantage Duke has had against these lesser ACC teams they have been hammering of late.  Duke also caught a first round gift, the moment was too big for Oral Roberts who couldn’t have played worse and allowed Duke to crush them in every aspect of the game.  All of that has led to Duke being way overvalued, I think we have a WTF (wrong team favored) scenario here and +3 (or better in some places) is an excellent bet in a game I expect Tennessee to win. 

Duke has some decent scoring outputs of late but this really isn’t an elite offensive Duke team.  Duke ranks 154th nationally with 72.6 points per game and I rate the Blue Devils shot selection as average at best.  Duke does make their foul shots but Tennessee does a great job of defending without fouling so that leaves second chance points which Tennessee doesn’t give up so I see it being far tougher for Duke to score here.  I still don’t think Jon Scheyer has magically figured out how to coach (I thought he was one of the worst power conference coaches prior to the win streak) so I’m willing to take Rick Barnes (even with his limited tournament success) for a coaching edge here.  I could see Duke thinking they can just shoot over the Tennessee defense but that’s fine with me as Duke enters play 207th nationally hitting just 33.7 percent from distance this season.  Tennessee will have an answer defensively for Kyle Filipowski and without a huge scoring/rebounding game from him I just don’t see how Duke wins here.

I typically don’t make this a huge part of my handicap but it’s worth noting that the masses can’t get to the window fast enough to wager on Duke here.  All the tickets and all the money are on Duke and the books have no choice but to move to 3.5 and 4 because this game ended up in a stand alone huge handle time slot.  THAT was surprising to me because I thought sharp money would have slammed this at +3 (it did to temporarily push it back to the opener of +2.5) and I thought for sure some large, respected bets would have come in on Tennessee +3.5 but it looks like the Duke handle is so big that odds makers have had no choice but to try to attract some Tennessee money.  So good for you if you are getting in late here and getting a better number, I’m fine with the +3 I have locked in as I fully expect Tennessee to win this game.  Play on Tennessee +3 (-110) for 4% (or 4 units)