If the Purdue Boilermakers, who have been one of the best teams in the country for most of the season, go on to win the national championship, they are going to have a heck of a story to tell. That’s because they will do that either without their outstanding big man, or with him, after, literally, the student body got involved to help. Talk about a team effort – Isaac Haas is going to try to play as Purdue takes on the Texas Tech Red Raiders in Sweet Sixteen action on Friday night at 9:57 PM ET at the TD Garden in Boston. Remember that if you are a VietBet customer, you can place wagers even while the game is in progress, using state-of-the-art technology provided by live Live Betting Ultra.
2018 NCAA Tournament Betting – Purdue vs Texas Tech:
In the 2018 NCAA Tournament Betting odds posted on this contest by the folks at VietBet, Purdue is the slight favorite:
Purdue Boilermakers -1.5
Texas Tech Red Raiders +1.5
Over 137.5 points -110
Under 137.5 points -110
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2018 NCAA Tournament Betting – CJ’s Take on Purdue vs Texas Tech in Sweet 16 Showdown:
Haas, who stands 7-2, suffered a fractured elbow in Purdue’s opening game. At that point in time, no one was celebrating, even though was a pretty big win over Cal-State Fullerton, because the prognosis was that Haas was not going to be able to play the rest of the way.
It may be kind of a long shot, but that might change. He actually tried to make post against Butler, and had a brace on the elbow. But because it contained metal, it violated NCAA rules, so he was not permitted to take the floor.
So then it was time for the kids to get to work. Purdue has a great engineering program, and a number of graduate students got together to design a brace that contain no metal at all, and Haas will wear that and try to get approved by the authorities to get into this game. Honestly, it’s all questionable at best.
But Haas is the team’s leading scorer (14.7 PPG) and rebounder (5.7 RPG), and he is the team’s big presence on the inside, when they don’t have a lot of that otherwise. So obviously it makes a lot of difference if he can get in a game.
Purdue has a lot of other assets aside from Haas. They can just shift the focus of their attack to the outside, where they are a robust 42.1% from beyond the arc, ranking second in the country. Of course, having their big guy in the lineup is a factor in drawing defenses inward, so that sometimes makes the job easier. But you should have this information – Carsen Edwards, who averages 18.2 points, along with Vincent Edwards, who had 20 points against Butler, both shoot a little better than 40% from downtown, while dangerous Dakota Mathias is 46.3% accurate. This contributes to Purdue being #2 in the nation in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency.
In that respect they got a pretty good matchup on their hands with a Texas Tech team that is fourth nationally in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency. The Red Raiders, are coached by Chris Beard, who was formerly at Arkansas-Little Rock, and preaches defense. That would seem to be obvious from some of the numbers. Texas Tech likes to force turnovers, but Purdue, which only coughs it up on 15.6% of all possessions, might have something to say about that.
Texas Tech’s approach is to give the ball to Keenan Evans, the 6-3 point guard, and let him penetrate and create. Evans also loves to get to the free-throw line, but there has been some concern lately because he’s been dealing with a toe injury. When he’s right, however, the Raiders can get into their offensive flow.
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