March Madness Betting Picks: Connecticut vs. Kentucky

Added on Apr 02, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NCAAB

Sure, it’s actually *April* now but March Madness betting will continue for a few more days as we’re down to the final four teams in the NCAA basketball tournament. In today’s later matchup Big East champion Connecticut will face SEC champion Kentucky for a trip to the title game on Monday night. The winner of this game will face the winner of the earlier game today between Virginia Commonwealth and Kentucky.

Connecticut vs. Kentucky (at Houston, Texas)
April 2, 2011 5:45 PM Pacific

This has been a very interesting March Madness tournament on many levels, and they couldn’t have set up the final any better had it been scripted. In one bracket, we’ve got a pair of traditional basketball powers from big conferences. In the other bracket, we’ve got two very talented mid-major programs that the idiots in the mainstream sports media keep insisting on calling ‘Cinderella teams’. When a team makes back to back Final Fours like Butler has they’re not a ‘Cinderella’ or a ‘plucky underdog’ just because they come from a smaller conference. This is basically circular logic on the part of the ESPN’s of the world–they fawn over the ‘power conferences’ and give them inordinate coverage. The NCAA plays their part by ignoring good mid major programs in favor of middle of the pack ‘power conference’ schools in a transparent cash grab–the bigger schools sell more tickets, t shirts and other gear. Then morons like Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale get all excited and wave their arms around about fair to middling programs from the Big 10, ACC, etc. while suggesting that schools like VCU don’t belong in the NCAA tournament at all. And any time a coach breaks off a text message to a recruit or a player gets arrested for acting like every other college kid in America they’ll get all sanctimonious and prattle on about ‘integrity in college sports’. It’s like Tony Soprano teaching a class in business ethics, though on some levels organized crime is more honorable since mobsters make no bones about subjugating principles to profits.

The reality is that the teams that “don’t belong” in the NCAA are the mediocre power conference also rans. As far as the smaller schools, trying to argue that a team ‘doesn’t belong’ despite said team reaching the Final Four–as Jay Bilas still maintains about VCU–is the height of stupidity. The point of all of this is that when you’re watching the Kentucky/Connecticut game today don’t be surprised if the announcers make it sound like the winner will be the de facto National Champion with Monday’s final a mere formality. Nothing could be further from the truth–you can read our take on this in more detail in our handicap of the outright March Madness winner. It’ll also give you our March Madness betting picks in the semifinal game between VCU and Butler. The reality of the situation is that all four of the remaining teams are completely capable of winning the championship regardless of their enrollment, athletic department budget or how excited Dick Vitale gets when he talks about them.

In this game we want to take the points with Connecticut. For some reason–the ‘tradition’ of their program perhaps which is utterly meaningless for handicapping this game–Kentucky is a favorite here. Never mind that the Huskies are 10-3 ATS as an underdog and 15-0 SU/8-1 ATS against non-conference foes. The real head scratcher is for UK to be favored after Connecticut beat them in the regular season 84-67. There’s been any number of rationalizations of why this was the case, but we see it as a fundamental tactical advantage for the Huskies and a bad matchup for the Wildcats–UConn plays disciplined enough defense both inside and on the perimeter that Kentucky can’t take advantage of their superior athleticism. In fact, the fundamental soundness of Connecticut’s defense makes UK’s tendency to try and exploit 1 on 1 matchups on offense a liability. Huskies win outright again.

Bet Connecticut +2′ over Kentucky