Posted on 4/7/2008 1:00:12 PM

NCAA Final Four Betting Championship - Kansas Jayhawks vs. Memphis Tigers

By D.S Williamson

Kansas Jayhawks (+ 3) vs. Memphis Tigers (- 3)

Tip-off: 9:15 pm est.

Did anybody else get those semi-final games wrong or what? UCLA was bad enough, they didn’t play with any heart during a single moment in their loss to the Memphis Tigers, but North Carolina pretty much getting steam-rolled by a Kansas team that had trouble with the Davidson Wildcats just seven days ago was a huge surprise.

There’s no excuse for either North Carolina or UCLA. UCLA came into the game with experience and what many BetUS NCAAB bettors thought was the best college basketball player in the Final Four, Kevin Love. Love barely got into the game. North Carolina went into their game with the NCAAB Basketball Betting player of the year, Tyler Hansbrough. Hansbrough tried his best to keep NC in the game, but the energy that they expended just to get within 5 points, after trailing by 28 to the Jayhawks, caught up with them in the final five minutes of the game.

So instead of having the UCLA Bruins vs. the North Carolina Tar Heels in the final we’ve got the Memphis Tigers vs. the Kansas Jayhawks.

What’s going to happen tonight when these two very deserving teams take the floor?

First, let’s take a look at the BetUS spread which is currently Memphis – 3.

There’s a reason that Memphis is favored in their game versus the Kansas Jayhawks. Memphis’s lone weakness going into this tournament was their terrible percentage from the free-throw line. Well, the Tigers have been stellar on the line since their first game in the tournament. They’re shooting close to 80% as a team. That’s much better than during the regular season when they were shooting in the low 60%. Will this new found touch from the free-throw line be enough for the Tigers to cover a – 3 spread?

Maybe. The truth about Memphis is that even though they will be playing an incredibly talented Kansas Jayhawks’ team, they will have the most talented player on the floor in Derrick Rose. Memphis’s big-men should be more than capable of controlling the paint. By controlling the paint, Memphis will allow Derrick Rose to find open lanes all night for his exceptional slashes to the basket. Rose is phenomenal. He’s gotten better in every game during this tournament. I expect a huge game out of him tonight.

Kansas will find it difficult to contain Rose. Not because the likely Jayhawk defender on Rose, Brandon Rush, can’t defend. He is the player who contained Stephen Curry during the Jayhawks’ Great Eight game. It’s because Rush is also the Jayhawks’ best scorer. If the best scorer on your team has to shut-down the other teams’ best scorer, what exactly is going to happen to you?

Kansas coach Bills Self will have to find a way for Rush to not only guard Rose, because nobody else on the Jayhawks’ team can guard him, but to guard Rose without expending too much energy on the defensive end. That’s not going to happen.

This could turn ugly for the Jayhawks. Yes, Memphis is that good.

Free Pick: Memphis Tigers to cover the – 3 BetUS spread.

Of course, there is also a potential wager in the BetUS over/under. The BetUS over/under at this time is 147.5.

That equates to around 74 points from each one of these teams. Trends really won’t help us in analyzing the BetUS over/under in tonight’s championship game. The Memphis Tigers usually play an over game. The Kansas Jayhawks usually play an under game.

So, what we need to do is actually take a look at the make-up of each team. Both teams want to get the ball inside to their big-men. The difference is that Memphis’s big-men are much more capable of finishing then Kansas’s. The ability to finish should serve Memphis well in any sort of half-court game.

Kansas will want to run with Memphis for easy buckets for the simple fact that they will have trouble dealing with Memphis’s defenders in the lane. Derrick Rose pushes the ball up the floor anyhow. So Memphis shouldn’t have an issue getting baskets. That means that both teams should score a lot tonight.

Because of that I’m going with the over in this one.

Free Pick: Over the BetUS over/under of 147.5

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