Final Four Betting Preview: Villanova Wildcats

Written April 1, 2009 by Steve Janus

villanova-final-four-preview-040109 The Villanova Wildcats are in their first Final Four since their 1985 team that made history by winning the NCAA Championship as a No. 8 seed. Nova was a 2-point underdog against Pittsburgh last Sunday and Scottie Reynolds hit the last-second shot that carried the ‘Cats to a 78-76 victory. Villanova has covered the spread in 3 of their four NCAA tournament games this year, their one non-cover coming against No. 15 seed American. The Wildcats then breezed by UCLA, and handed Duke their worst loss in their kast 19 years of tournamnet play (23 points). Pittsburgh has been the only team to score 70 points or more against Nova in this year’s tournamnet. Bet on Villanova against North Carolina this Saturday.

Villanova’s regular season started with the Wildcats winning 12 of their first 13 games, and though they stumbled a bit late in the season in conference play, they still wound up 13-5 in the Big East and managed an 11-7 record against the spread against conference opponents. At one point in the season the ‘Cats rattled off eight straight wins against the spread, so you know how capable they are of staying hot in the tournamnet. Looking at the college basketball odds for this year’s Big East Tournament, Villanova lost by 14 in the semifinals against Louisville as 4.5 point underdogs.

The team is lead on offense by Dante Cunningham who averages 15.6 points per game. He is the team’s biggest threat in the paint, and the Wildcats need him to stay out of foul trouble and play at the high level he has been playing at throughout the tournament. If he is contained or collects too many fouls early, the team will have a hard time making up for his presence down-low. The team offers a balanced scoring attack with Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher both averaging double-digit points per game this year, but having any one of those guys be shutdown, or not show up would be a disaster for the Wildcats’ run.

Villanova Advances If: They keep playing with energy on defense and play within their personnel on offense. They’ll need to force North Carolina into forcing shots, because if they simply allow the Tar Heels to shoot and hope for the best, they’ll never be able to keep up. They are good enough to compete with any of the other 3 teams in the Final Four, but they cannot afford to fall behind early against UNC. Villanova plays North Carolina on Saturday, April 4th in Detroit, Michian at 8:47 PM EST. The Wildcats are currently 7.5 point underdogs.

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