Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Houston and Duke at 849 Eastern San Antonio, TX, and we'll start with the lines as we did
00:06previously here, Mark, for Florida and Auburn. Before we handicap the game or get people up to
00:10date, let's just take a look at where the lines are actually moving. Vanduul in New Jersey opened
00:15up this line earlier in the week at a minus 4.5 price, minus 115 towards the Duke Blue Devils as
00:21the favorite here. The total opened up at 136.5, where it stands live right now, minus 5.5 as a
00:27favorite at minus 106 for the Duke Blue Devils, and the total unchanged at 136.5. So, seeing these
00:34lines based on the opening numbers, where they sit today, and also, Mark, where you think some
00:39of these lines might wind up by tip time on Saturday in San Antonio? Well, it's not a doubt
00:44in my mind this will be at 6 or 6.5 by the time they tip it off. Public's going to continue to
00:50hammer Duke. That's what's going to happen here. So, if you're waiting on Houston or you'd like,
00:56do you think Houston wins? I would wait until we get closer to Saturday, but you've seen this
01:00number slowly start to creep. Even at that, the first half number is starting to creep up as well.
01:06So, obviously, there's a correlation there, but I don't see how this doesn't hit 6. I genuinely don't.
01:14Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where it plays out, too, because typically you see those lines
01:17rip and run, like where that total is 155, 160, a lot more possessions, a lot more chance to maybe
01:21stretch that lead out. You might not get this in this because both of these teams aren't ultra fast,
01:26particularly with Houston, much more methodical. But having said that, if you just look at the
01:30one metric that comes into this game based on Ken Palm, number one in the country at adjusted
01:35efficiency on offense, it's Duke. Number one in defense at adjusted efficiency, it's Houston here.
01:41If we just look at that side of the basketball, Duke's offense, Houston's defense, who actually
01:46has the edge since both are ranked number one in their respective parts? Well, again, Cooper Flag
01:55is the ultimate cheat code, so to speak, given what he can do. But Houston's great team defense
02:02is the issue. And Houston may turn around and look at this game and go, you know, we might just give
02:06Cooper Flag what he wants. We're just going to stop everybody else. And that may be enough
02:11for them to get through this thing here. But this is one of the best defenses we've seen in college
02:16basketball in the last 20 years. So I think that Duke is going to have their hands full with this
02:22team defensively in Houston, what they can do. But pace is really what, to me, will this game
02:29will come down to. Houston is not winning his 78-74 basketball game. Not against this team.
02:36They could do it against, you know, TCU, but they're not doing that against this team.
02:42So the whole measure here for Houston is to keep Duke to 70 points or less. That's how they end
02:51up winning this game. If Duke is above 75, I don't know that Duke has a chance. Because
03:00look on the flip side of this here, you talked about the number one rankings in offensive and
03:03defensive efficiency. Duke's defensive rating is four, and Houston's offensive rating is 10.
03:10So yeah, they're going to have to figure out a way to put up enough points in this game as well
03:20in order to beat them. But the best defense, their best offense they could put together is
03:24a good defense against Duke. And I think Duke should try and speed them up because I think
03:30slowing them down to a Houston team that placed 360th out of 364 teams and adjusted tempo,
03:36you're not going to beat Houston at their own game. That's what they're really good at.
03:40If you saw what Purdue did to Houston, that game looked so frenetic and out of sorts. Houston's
03:45offense was never able to really get going in the first half, which is why it was a game made
03:50the whole entire way. Well, if Duke speeds up Houston and continues to push the pace,
03:56they are going to frustrate Houston and they're going to miss a lot more shots than they're going
04:00to make.