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Final Four Odds: Michigan State vs. Connecticut

Written by Jimmy Boyd on April 1, 2009

final four odds The Michigan State Spartans pulled off the upset over No. 1 seed Louisville to claim the Midwest Region crown. That puts Tom Izzo back in the Final Four where he has spent a lot of time since taking over the head coaching job at Michigan State. The Spartans will get to stay right at home for this one too with the Final Four being held at Ford Field in Detroit. The Spartans’ opponent is the West Region champion Connecticut Huskies. Connecticut handled No. 3 seed Missouri and its full court pressure defense to get to the Final Four. In this article, I’ll take a look at the keys to victory for each team. The Connecticut Huskies are listed as 4-point favorites with the total set at 133.5.

The road to the Final Four has been far from easy for No. 2 seed Michigan State. After cruising past Robert Morris, the Spartans had to survive a pair of tough games with USC and Kansas before handling No. 1 overall seed Louisville. The story behind Michigan State’s success has been its defense. The Spartans have held all four of their NCAA Tournament opponents under 70 points and held Kansas and Louisville to just 62 and 52 points respectively in their last two games. It is going to take yet another superb defensive effort to get past a Connecticut team that is averaging 87.3 points per game in the dance. Offensively, it is going to be up to Big Ten Player of the Year Kalin Lucas to lead the way. Lucas has taken every big shot for the Spartans this season and he may need to have another one in him to get past UConn. Lucas’ quickness figures to be a problem for the Huskies. His penetration has led to easy buckets for himself and his teammates. Lucas has been huge in distributing the basketball over the last three games with 19 assists during that span. It’s going to take another star performance by the best player in the Big Ten for the Spartans to get to the title game. Bet the Michigan State Spartans at +4 at BetUS.

Connecticut has been dominant in the NCAA Tournament, winning each of its first three games by double digits before beating Missouri by seven in the Elite Eight. While UConn can play half court basketball, I think it will be important for the Huskies to look to run a little more often to take Michigan State out of its comfort zone. Michigan State is a physical team and very fundamentally sound on defense. The Spartans are going to look to pack it in to make sure that Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien don’t dominate them in the paint. That is going to put pressure on UConn to knock down some perimeter shots and the guy that has been dialing up threes throughout the tournament is leading scorer A.J. Price. Price had 18 points in UConn’s Elite Eight win over Missouri. If Kemba Walker, who had 23 points, 5 assists, and 5 boards off the bench in Connecticut’s Elite Eight matchup can put together another performance like that, it’s going to be very difficult for the Spartans to defend the Huskies. Another major key is for Hasheem Thabeet to stay out of foul trouble as his ability to block and alter shots is so crucial to the effectiveness of the UConn defense. Bet the Connecticut Huskies at -4 at BetUS.

Jimmy Boyd is an amazing 17-6 with his college basketball picks in the NCAA Tournament. Make sure you’re double your college basketball betting with Jimmy Boyd in the Final Four for the most winners against the basketball odds.

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