Sunday, April 7, 2019
A TOUGH DEFENSE VERSUS A SLOW OFFENSE
Six battling for final 2 money spots as 4 have clinched; 15 vying for Bonus
BANC OF CALIFORNIA STADIUM, LOS ANGELES/SANTA BARBARA, CA (smt)- Will this be a Butler-UConn type championship when just 94 points were scored? Texas Tech has held the two Michigans to 44 and 51 points and 6th-best offense in Buffalo to 58 points while Virginia held high scoring Oklahoma and Oregon to 51 and 49 points. Including the tournament, Virginia is #1 in scoring defense (allowing 55.5 pts/game) and Texas Tech is #3 (58.8). Virginia is 7th in 3-point percentage (39.4%) though they take their time taking their shots. Or maybe we’ll be surprised and Texas Tech will score something like 78 or 75 like they did vs Buffalo and Gonzaga or Virginia will score 80 like they did against Purdue. Virginia has needed luck at the buzzer twice, scoring a game-tying buzzer beater off a missed free throw against Purdue and a missed double-dribble call and foul on a buzzer-beating 3-point shot against Auburn. Texas Tech has won each game by at least six points with four in double-digits. With all that, Virginia is just a one-point favorite to try to complete the worst-to-first (losing to #16 seed to winning the title) and the over/under is an all-time low of 118 pts. With so many tiebreakers in play for the top 6 and the Bonus, this low over/under is at least 10 points less than the tiebreak point giving those entries who guessed lowest a little buffer.
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