Choosing between Duke and the University of Tennessee. Easy choice right? Duke is the legendaryNumber 1 seeds in the country. Also the defending national champion. Also they have a pretty nice resume for another run at the crown. Tennessee is coming off a pretty bad season finishing with a loss to Vanderbilt and it’s hard to give the Volunteers more than a 5 to 1 second place finish. I know that Duke will have its fans following closely and for good reason as the Blue Devils have the best shot at winning the NCAA Tournament.
But some oddsmakers do have an impact on the way different books set the lines for basketball games. With Duke potentially being the favorite, it might get as high as Syracuse does. The line shooter wins and he gets the money in Las Vegas sportsbooks. slot 138 login And because most sportsbooks set up with different basketball numbers, if you get a good bet, you can get a good return. It could be less than a percent, but if you got a good deal, you could find a place to get a good price on the underdog.
Duke had the best start in tournament play this year, going 32-5. But throughout the tougher conference tournament stages, Duke continued to play as well as many of the other top teams.
“We’re no longer going to exploit our depth as much as we did in the beginning,” Blue Devils coach John Thompson III said. “Our guys know they have to play well to be right back in the mix.”
For instance, Florida played well in the first half of the SEC tournament but stunk out in the second. That’s because the Gators had nothing else to lose, while Duke had to travel to Atlanta, which experts said would be a tough transition for the team.
Duke did end up ” blowing out” Gonzaga on Sunday, which can be a good sign. Experts expect the Blue Devils to be better and for Duke to have home court advantage, which would make the run to the Final Four a more difficult one.
If Duke were to meet Syracuse in the finals, the bet would not be Duke versus Syracuse but rather Pittsburgh versus Kansas. Pittsburgh is 9 to the pleasure of the Big East while Kansas is 9 to the pain.
Duke continued to play well despite foul trouble all season, averaging 23.5 points per game. The emergence of Retclusion figures to continue as Duke went 5-1 up until the end of the regular season while struggling to win eight of its final 11 games.
After Duke won its season low, public bettors continued to back the team and it wasn’t until the team’s game againstabilis that the pointspreads started to drop. Duke lost at home versus University of Connecticut, 79-74, but still entered the rankings at No. 16.
“We’re not surprised by the rankings,” Duke coach John Thompson III said. “They’re the No. 1 team in the country and we’re the No. 16 seed. It’s always tough to be ranked behind Texas, North Carolina and Florida. We’re the smallish seed, but we’re not a bad seeding.”
Duke has been the nation’s top-ranked team all season and was No. 1 in the preseason. The Blue Devils will be facing tournament MVP and fellow top-ranked UConn. Duke won the ESPN Bracket Entertainmentoldering Challenge and took a 7-0 run to its first national title game since 1975 on Sunday.
The other three No. 1 seeds — United States, Gonzaga and Kansas — will earn at least automatic bids to the Final Four.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a young, volatile team carry the burden of a first-round game,” Las Vegas Hilton SuperBook oddsmaker and supervisor Jeff Sherman said.
“It used to be you’d get a second-round game and not (Matt) Price,” Sherman continued.
“Then the national championship game was ( 1980), the final to get (any) seed higher than a 6, the last to get anything higher than a 8.
“This year’s No. 1 and two other top seeds, 2011 NCAA Tournament futures by the Hilton, were futures 8 at the Hilton.
“Nothing beats a national championship.
“This weekend’s games (second round results) were Purdue/Georgetown and Vanderbilt/Alabama.
“Those are gummy.”
The No. 1-ranked and defending national champion Gators are 25-2, the third consecutive year they’ve been a champ.
“We opened (the SEC) as high as a No. 2,” Florida Managing Director Reggie Farmiliario said.
“Then we started to lose some teams.
“Then the (First round) filed story and (voltier Internet) got it all low.
