NCAA Tournament by the odds: Vegas picks and perspective of the Final Four

By Case Keefer (contact)

Saturday, April 1, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Diving into Final Four betting history won’t do much good for three of the teams this year, considering they’ve combined for one appearance in the last 78 years and none of their coaches have ever advanced this far.

That leaves coach Roy Williams and his North Carolina Tar Heels with the only track record to analyze. And based on that, bettors will want to back North Carolina as it chases a sixth NCAA Tournament championship.

Williams has gone 5-2 straight-up and against the spread in four Final Four appearances at North Carolina. Even with a prior, less triumphant tenure at Kansas weighing him down, Williams has still been a profitable bet in his eight career forays this deep into the tournament at 7-6 straight-up and against the spread.

Can Oregon’s Dana Altman, Gonzaga’s Mark Few and South Carolina’s Frank Martin overcome Williams’ experience advantage? Talking Points will try to figure it out by finishing off picking every tournament game against the spread.

Check below for picks on today’s Final Four games, and come back Monday for the national championship. The blog’s record picking every game through the Elite Eight stands at 36-26-2 against the spread.

No. 1 seed Gonzaga minus-6.5 vs. No. 7 seed South Carolina There’s been a lot of gawking at South Carolina’s defense during its four upsets in four rounds to reach the Final Four, but there’s no reason to marvel at that part of its run. The Gamecocks aren’t doing anything differently than they did all year in stifling opponents and refusing to give up easy looks. It’s on the other side of the court where they’re doing something that’s hard to believe. South Carolina is scoring a significant 0.2 more points per possession in the tournament compared to the regular season.

P.J. Dozier and Duane Notice have raised their level of play to pair with star Sindarius Thornwell, who’s probably the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament so far. But they’ve also faced a fairly uninspiring stretch of defenses, save for an Elite Eight matchup with Florida, a team they had already played twice in the season. The average kenpom.com defensive efficiency ranking of South Carolina’s four opponents is 58th. Gonzaga is No. 1. Yes, even ahead of South Carolina itself, which comes in at No. 2.

It’s hard to see the Bulldogs giving up enough open looks to allow the Gamecocks to continue to shoot 5 percentage points better in the tournament than they did in the regular season. As the team third in the nation in kenpom’s effective height metric, Gonzaga will also have the biggest size advantage of any team South Carolina has faced. The Gamecocks’ interior defense doesn’t grade out as highly as their perimeter defense, which should work to the Bulldogs' favor. Their preferred game plan is to penetrate with point guard Nigel Williams-Goss and play through the post with big men Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins. This is a matchup where that should work, and end a memorable Final Four run from a team that was 250-to-1 to win the tournament just two weeks ago.

No. 3 seed Oregon plus-5 vs. No. 1 seed North Carolina The consensus among betting types after Oregon’s 74-60 victory over Kansas as 7-point underdogs in the Elite Eight was that Dana Altman outcoached Bill Self. The Jayhawks were slow to adapt to the variety of rotating defensive looks thrown at them by the Ducks, which also ran crisper offense. What’s to stop the Ducks from doing the same thing to the Tar Heels? North Carolina coach Roy Williams is even more known for being slow to implement in-game adjustments, and like the Jayhawks, the Tar Heels have displayed a tendency for momentary defensive lapses through the season — especially guarding the 3-point line.

The flip side is, it’s unlikely Oregon will shoot as well from the outside. Even when Kansas played tight on Tyler Dorsey, the sophomore was unaffected. Dorsey, second to Thornwell for the scoring lead in the NCAA Tournament, hit 6 of 10 attempts from beyond the arc to bring his tournament total to 17-for-26, which is bound for regression. At the other end, Oregon dared Kansas to attack the rim, where Jordan Bell lurked and feasted. Bell had eight blocks and 13 rebounds. That will be hard to repeat against a bigger North Carolina team that’s controlled the paint all season. North Carolina’s best player, junior forward Justin Jackson, is bigger than Kansas’ primary creators. Senior Kennedy Meeks is coming off grabbing a career-high 17 rebounds in a 75-73 Elite Eight victory over Kentucky.

North Carolina was a 2.5-point favorite in the game that will be immortalized after former walk-on Luke Maye’s 20-foot game-winning jump shot within the final second. The finish exemplified the fact that the matchup was almost the very definition of a pick’em. North Carolina, 2-2 against the spread in the tournament, continues to be the slightest bit overvalued. And in a game where a strong argument can be made for both sides matchup-wise, there’s no sense in taking the overvalued team.

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