Of all the No. 4 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, I’m most bullish on the Purdue Boilermakers chances of making a deep run. Matt Painter’s kids finished fourth in arguably the toughest conference in the nation behind Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. It would’ve made more noise in the B1G Tournament had it not been forced to exert a ton of energy to come back against Ohio State in the second half before running out of gas in overtime. While the Boilers might be a year away from being a bonafide championship contender, I love the makeup of the team as well as their path to the Final Four. It also gets the benefit of playing in its own backyard with every game being played in the state of Indiana. The North Texas Mean Green are a great story with an excellent coach in Grant McCasland and a PTPer in the do everything Javion Hamlet. What they don’t have is the size or depth down low needed to hang with the Boilermakers for a full 40. Because of that, I fully expect Purdue to enforce its will and hand the C-USA reps a non-covering defeat at online sportsbooks.
Take this Big Dance matchup in live on TNT at 7:25 p.m. ET from Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday, March 19, 2021. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on Friday’s NCAA Tournament slate.
College Basketball Odds at BookMaker.eu
North Texas Mean Green +7.5
Purdue Boilermakers -7.5
Over/Under 126.5
Odds Analysis
This matchup opened with the Boilermakers lined 8-point favorites and the total set at a tidy 128. Purdue has received most of the attention in early betting with 59 percent of the tickets and 64 percent of the money. Even so, the number to beat has fallen a half point to -7.5 and looks to be headed even lower with 7s also starting to pop up. With both Purdue (No. 274) and North Texas (No. 350) sporting two of the slowest tempos in the nation, it comes with little surprise to see the total on the decline. It’s down to 126.5 with a whopping 80 percent of the tickets and 63 percent of the money in favor of the game playing out to a slow grinder.
North Texas Mean Green
Everything begins and ends with Hamlet. The senior point guard can do it all; from scoring the basketball, passing the basketball and rebounding the basketball. His 18.5 point per game scoring average is nearly double the Mean Green’s next highest scorer. His 7.0 assists per game is tops on the team and ranks out as one of the best outputs in the country. Most impressive is his 6.5 rebounds per game that also lead the team in that department. Unfortunately, North Texas doesn’t have much else in the way of firepower and will need its superstar to go HAM for it to be competitive throughout this matchup.
Purdue Boilermakers
As solid the Mean Green are defensively (No. 42), the Boilermakers are simply just better (No. 23); and they attained their impressive defensive efficiency metrics against a much tougher cast of opponents than that of North Texas. Bottom line, UNT doesn’t have anyone on the roster that will be able to limit Trevion Williams or Zach Edey down low. On top of that, both Zach Simmons and Thomas Bell are extremely foul prone. If either is marred by foul trouble early on, the Boilermakers will simply be able to do as they please close to the rack and there will be nothing North Texas will be able to do about it.
North Texas vs. Purdue Prediction
The Mean Green clock in with the nation’s No. 119 ranked offensive efficiency per the current Pomeroy Ratings. It’s hard enough for them to run efficient offense as it is, but it only looks to be getting worse when you throw the top-25 ranked defensive efficiency of the Boilermakers into the equation. North Texas is simply going to have to work way too hard to put points on the board. On the flipside, Purdue is going to have its way. If you can find a point total prop for Williams, I’d slam the over with a max unit bet if I were you! If Hamlet goes HAM and allows North Texas to stick all the way through, so be it. I’ll be loading up against that occurring and I highly advise snagging some Purdue futures to win the South Region as well as the ‘Natti just in case they find their way into the Final Four.
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