Elite 8 Preview: Saturday

There are only seven games left in the season, which is somewhat depressing. Hopefully, we have some fantastic games ahead of us. The two tonight each have that potential.

For each team I've listed the "Best Final Four odds", which are the best odds you could find two weeks ago. The "Real Final Four odds" are the odds you would've gotten if you'd bet on that teams' money line in each game.

(1) UCLA -6.5 vs. (3) Xavier
6:40pm EST
Best Final Four odds: UCLA -140, Xavier +1100
Real Final Four odds: UCLA 53.2% (-138), Xavier 6.4% (+1327)

Yesterday, Gasaway pointed out the parallels between last year's Ohio St. team, and UCLA this season. Both teams came into the tournament as top seeds with lofty expectations, and both struggled in rounds two and three. The Buckeyes had no trouble with Memphis in the Elite 8, and reached the championship game before losing to Florida.

Despite the sample size of one, it's an interesting comparison. That both teams revolved around a point guard and a big man doesn't hurt. I do think last year's Tennessee team was better than WKU this year; they did reach the Sweet 16, but the Hilltoppers only beat Drake and San Diego on their way there.

The Bruins are also still dealing with these lingering injury issues. It's far from clear that Mbah a Moute is healthy, as he's combined for 9 points and 10 turnovers in their last two games. They survived A&M without a third guy stepping up (check out the box score; it was really absurd), but they are going to need Shipp and/or Westbrook to have solid games to get past Xavier.

Drew Lavender is the guy everyone loves to talk about (he's short, if you hadn't heard), but Josh Duncan has gotten the Musketeers here, averaging almost 21 points in the first three tournament games. X has the bodies to stop Love inside, but I'm not sure who on this UCLA team the 5'7 Lavender will be able to defend.

(1) North Carolina -6 vs (3) Louisville
9:05 pm EST
Best Final Four odds: UNC -125, Louisville +350
Real Final Four odds: UNC 46.6% (-101), Louisville 11.1% (+700)

Finally.

These two have combined to win their first six games by 158 points. This is especially impressive considering the East was considered the most difficult region, although I suppose a large part of that was because it contained these two squads.

It's arguably the best offense in the country against what might be the best defense, but they get it done in different ways. UNC is so good because of all the offensive rebounds, and all the free throws- there's one guy who I think is pretty good at both of these things, but I can't seem to remember his name. Louisville held its opponents to the seventh lowest eFG in the country, which is interesting since they only person on Carolina that really qualifies as a "shooter" is Ellington (Danny Green fit that description for the first have against Wazzu, but doesn't qualify otherwise.)

On offense, Louisville relies on the inside games of Earl Clark, David Padgett, and Derrick Caracter. Their only real outside threat is McGee, although that doesn't stop Williams, Smith, and Sosa from jacking up plenty of threes as well. They need to get the ball inside to Padgett both because this is how they can score, and they can look to get Hansbrough into foul trouble. If they run the offense through him, rather than having their guards throw up ill advised shots from the perimeter, they can win this game.

As you're surely noticed, all the #1 seeds are still alive. We're four games away from the "doomsday" scenario of all four reaching San Antonio. Each is favored this weekend, but the lines only give a 1 in 4 chance to all four of them advancing.