Looking for sharp sports betting action this Final Four weekend? Your curated list of tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
Final Four player prop – Emanuel Sharp has been one of three Houston players to make over 40% from three this season. Since coming back from an injury over the past 15 games, Sharp has averaged 13.0 points per game.
However, he goes up against Duke’s elite defense, ranked 4th in my adjusted points per possession. Sharp most likely matches up with Kon Knueppel, an excellent 6’7″ wing defender. My simple model ranges from predicting 8.9 points for Sharp based on Big 12 play to 11.8 based on the past 15 games.
In addition, Sharp’s 41.5% from three is a career high, which suggests future regression. There is value in Emanuel Sharp under 12.5, -130 available at FanDuel.
Members have access to two other college basketball player props in this game. Any props for Monday’s final will be released at 5pm Eastern on Sunday.
Final Four predictions – These are predictions usually saved for paying members of The Power Rank.
- Florida will beat Auburn by 2.2 points. Auburn had a great weekend against Michigan and Michigan State to make the Final Four. However, it gets much more difficult against Florida, whose offense has overtaken Auburn to rank 1st in my adjusted points per possession.
- Duke will beat Houston by 4.1 points. This game comes down to whether Houston can make threes against an excellent Duke defense. Duke’s perimeter defenders are tall, and there is some signal in the 30.8% they have allowed from three this season, 30th best in the nation.
Florida end game situations – You might see Todd Golden do something unconventional in the Final Four. For example, Florida might foul with a two point lead and 22 seconds remaining in the game.
As told in The Athletic (subscription required), it goes back to a 2019 Final Four meeting with Golden and Ken Pomeroy, the godfather of college basketball analytics. Pomeroy had stopped pitching optimal end of game decisions to coaches because he found them too risk averse.
Not Golden. In January of 2020 as the coach at San Francisco, Golden opted to foul BYU up two points with 22 seconds remaining. They targeted a 54% free throw shooter. When COVID hit, Pomeroy and Jonathan Safir on Florida’s staff did a deep dive to fine tune these end of game probabilities.
It might not work out for Florida, but Todd Golden will use analytics to get any possible edge in the Final Four.
Houston basketball – Houston wins with defense. And this year, Houston can shoot the three. But they also win with their conditioning.
Alan Bishop is the Director of Sports Performance for Houston basketball, and he posted these final mile times for the team before the season started (hat tip to Steve Magness).
- Fastest Time – 5:07 (6’3” – 196lbs)
- Slowest Time – 5:45 (6’9” – 260lbs)
- Team Average – 5:19
The Houston ran the mile each of the four weeks leading up to the season. These were times from the last mile run.
Basketball humor – Nolan Richardson, the national championship winning coach at Arkansas, on the first time he heard of Larry Bird. So worth 80 seconds of your time.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
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