A pair of the highest seeds remaining in the 2010 NCAA Tournament will throw down in Final 4 betting action on Saturday night when head coach Bob Huggins’ West Virginia Mountaineers (31-6, 17-19 ATS) meet up with head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils; tip is set for 8:45 ET from Lucas Oil Stadium.
The Blue Devils are 2.5-point March Madness odds favorites and the over/under is 131.
The Mountaineers were the survivors of a bracket that ended up pretty cut and dry, as it had the only #1/#2 match-up of the entire tournament in the Elite 8.
Rewind a couple rounds and you’ll find that West Virginia took it to a Morgan State team in the second half to pull out the 77-50 neutral court cover as 17-point favorites. Big men Devin Ebanks and Kevin Jones had monster games combining for 33 points, 21 rebounds, and three blocked shots.
The Mounty’s defense showed how nasty a defensive squad it is by limiting the Bears to 29.5 percent from the field.
Round two saw them partake in a battle with the Big 12 representative Missouri Tigers, but in the end, Da’Sean Butler and company gutted out the 68-59 SU & ATS victory.
West Virginia had the advantage of playing in familiar surroundings (Carrier Dome) in the Sweet 16, and it immediately made the most of of it by getting past Washington. Though they turned the ball over a whopping 23 times, the defense was relentless as it limited the hot Huskies to just 56 overall points and outrebounded the Pac 10 reps 41-25.
They found themselves dogged (+4) for the first time in the tourney in their Elite 8 battle with Kentucky, but uglied it up enough to pull out the dominating 73-66 outright victory. The defense once again stymied an opponent holding the top seeded Wildcats to 34.3 percent shooting and a 4/32 effort from beyond the arc.
WVU enters this match-up winners of 10 in a row (6-4 ATS).
Coach K and his Duke Blue Devils are back in the Final 4 for the first time since 2004 after coming out on top in the South Region.
They took care of the play-in winners in round one without breaking much of a sweat. Kyle Singler led all scorers with 22 points, and the Blue Devils secured the easy SU win and cover as 24-point chalk.
The second round saw them explode out of the gates taking a 37-24 lead with them into the break against California, and they cruised in the second half to ultimately win by a 68-53 final tally; the 15-point victory saw them once again cover the closing CBB betting odds.
The Dookies Sweet 16 battle with the Purdue Boilermakers was close for the first 30+ minutes. However, Duke was just too much for the Boilers on the glass (45-22), and Kyle Singler seemingly couldn’t miss a shot down the stretch. They ended up coasting to their third straight March Madness cover winning 70-57.
In their Elite 8 match-up with Baylor, the Bears seemingly had the Dookies on the ropes late but Coach K’s kids still found a way to get the job done. On top of the win, Duke remained perfect ATS in 2010 NCAA Tournament play.
Duke enters Final 4 betting action winners of eight games in a row and covered five of those games against the CBB betting odds.
This will be the first meeting between these programs since the Mountaineers bounced the Blue Devils in the second round of the 2008 Tourney.
West Virginia is a stellar 12-2-1 ATS its L/15 March Madness battles and a perfect 5-0-1 ATS the L/6 times it was installed an NCAA Tournament underdog. Duke is 6-11 ATS the L/17 times it was tagged an NCAA Tournament favorite (4-0 ATS currently) and just 1-5-1 ATS the L/7 times it opposed a Big East opponent.
Mike Rose has been in the sports handicapping business for over a decade, and is a leading sports writer for some of the top sports betting news websites on the internet. To keep up with him on a daily basis, you can