Kansas vs. Kentucky NCAA Basketball Pick

It's Kansas vs. Kentucky in this year's NCAA Finals, and our betting picks are in.

In college football, the last home game is dedicated to the Seniors who have dedicated four years of their lives to the school. There is the traditional march from the goal line to the 50-yard line with parents joining them and it is a real tribute to the amateur athlete. Granted, many of these players are on scholarships, but many more at the D-II and D-III levels are not. In college basketball, the Final Game in the NCAA Tournament ought to be coined graduation night. 

Once again, Kentucky is a centerpiece of NBA talented freshman, whose agenda is to stay in school for seven months and declare themselves eligible for the NBA draft. There is rarely any focus on academics other than making sure they are NCAA eligible to play. As exciting as it is to watch these athletes play at such a high level, there is a missing part called student-athlete.

The NCAA commercial showing various athletes participating in the 29 sports sanctioned by the NCAA states that the majority of these athletes will be going pro in something else. Well, that is not the case for many of the players on the court tonight, and if it were not for the one-year college requirement set forth by the NBA, we not even be watching Anthony Davis tonight. 

I listened intently to the press conference interviews before and after the Louisville-Kentucky game and I have to admit there was a point where Pitino flat out fibbed a bit about the talent on the Kentucky team. He mentioned that he is just not the type of head coach that could recruit a kid and say goodbye to him after just seven short months. That it is not in his character.

I sensed a bit of envy out of Pitino that his state rival Calipari not only can recruit better than he, but that he has the incredible ability to build a team of players that are focused more on the NBA then their short stint at Kentucky, and get them to play as a completely unselfish team. 

Equally amazing is that Kansas has trailed for 75:44 minutes of a possible 80 minutes in their last two games against Big Ten opponents Purdue and Ohio State and somehow survived. Kansas is ranked fifth best in the country based on the NCAA committee seedings as they were the first No. 2 seed chosen and placed.

Kansas can win this game, but they will need some things to go well for them. This is certainly not a 'David Versus' type of game. So, the fact that Kansas has had to battle hard in the second half of their last two games gives them an extremely positive and confident mindset for this game tonight. 

Some Final Stats

NCAA Basketball betting favorites in the Championship game are on a nice 11-4 SU and 9-6 ATS run spanning the last 15 games played. This mark the 24th straight year that a No. 4 seed or higher will win the Men’s Basketball Championship. There have been just six Championship games featuring two No. 1 seeds competing for the title. No. 1 seeds in the Final are 6-2 ATS and bad news for Kansas is that No. 2 seeds are just 1-5 ATS in the Final when coming off a straight win installed as the NCAA Basketball odds dog.

Kentucky has been installed as a 6.5 point favorite and the college basketball lines have been moved to -6 -110 at the majority of shops. It is unlikely that the volume of sports picks would drive the price to the -5 level, but it is noteworthy that favorites in the Final of five points or less are an amazing 11-1 ATS. Bad news for Kansas noting that dogs of three or more points of a straight win installed as a dog in the semifinal are just 1-5 ATS. 

I like Kentucky as a 5* graded play. I have a big problem playing against this Kentucky team, who did not play their best game against Louisville, but at times were overwhelmingly dominant. This is Anthony Davis’ stage and despite the fact the public is on the Wildcats, I just can’t find any meaningful group of stats or matchups that would offset the real advantages have in this game.