Well, the Duke Blue Devils and Kansas Jayhawks survived a bit of anxiety on their way to the Elite Eight, and on Sunday these two will play each other for the championship of the Midwest regional and a berth in the Final Four in San Antonio. This is one of those classic matchups between two teams with great tradition and a lot of recent success, and things will get underway at 5:05 PM ET at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha. Remember that if you are of a VietBet customer, you can place wagers even after the game tips off, as you take advantage of what is available through Live Betting Ultra.
2018 Elite Eight Betting – Duke Blue Devils vs. Kansas Jayhawks :
In 2018 Elite Eight Betting online at VietBet, Duke is laying some points:
Duke Blue Devils -3.5
Kansas Jayhawks +3.5
Over 154.5 points -110
Under 154.5 points -110
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2018 Elite Eight Betting: CJ’s Take on Duke vs Kansas:
Kansas, a team that has won fourteen straight titles in the Big 12, led Clemson by 20 points at one juncture in the second half (62-42), but held off a big Tiger charge to register an 80-76 victory. They got balanced scoring, and that included 17 points from Malik Newman, who has averaged over 24 in his last six games. Kansas, of course, already has a player of the year candidate in Devonte’ Graham, who averages over 17 points and seven assists per game, but in his last two outings he has gone only 5-for-19 from the field. And that may be a concern, especially as shooting on the inside may become rougher here.
Duke probably knew it was going to be in for some headaches as it faced Syracuse, which was really in a groove with its matchup zone. And it was a fortunate thing that the Blue Devils had enough size to get inside and get to the free throw line, because they were only five of 26 from beyond the arc. Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter, the brilliant freshmen, went 14-of-19 from the charity stripe in a 69-65 victory.
Everyone knows that Duke can score from everywhere, and they do it not so much from the outside (even though they are 38.3% accurate), but in close, with two-point marksmen like Carter (59%) and Bagley (65%). Kansas hopes to compete on the inside, and they are going to have to do it with Udoka Azubuike, who recently came back from an MCL sprain.
Coach K has utilized his 2-3 zone defense pretty well; in ten of their last sixteen games, they have held the opposition under 40% shooting. Remember that Krzyzewski is a disciple of Bob Knight, who he played for at West Point and was a staunch opponent of zone defenses. But this works for the most part.
One of the ways teams ponder attacking zone defenses like this is to shoot from the outside, and Kansas can definitely do that, hitting a little over 40.5% from the three-point arc, which makes them the tenth-best team in the nation at it. But here’s what is interesting about that statistic – in each of their last four games they have exceeded that. And for what it’s worth, they have played seven of their last ten games over the total.
Kansas’ defensive rebounding statistics are not glowing; while Duke is the top offensive rebounding team in the nation, pulling down 39.2% of their missed shots, the Jayhawks are only 295th nationwide in the defensive side of that category. Azubuike averages less than 24 minutes a game, so Kansas spends a considerable amount of time without its big guy. In the last two tournament games he has played 22 and 25 points, respectively.
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