Well the long college basketball betting season is finally at an end as Butler battles Duke for the National Championship.  We’ll be turning our attention to baseball betting, along with the NHL and NBA playoffs in the coming weeks. We’ll also look to get involved with the back-from-the dead Arena Football league.  But for Monday, at least, the big sporting event both for bettors and fans alike is the NCAA basketball final.

In 1988 the great Chuck D of Public Enemy warned a ‘nation of millions’:  ‘Don’t believe the hype’.  He wasn’t speaking of college basketball handicapping per se, but its a good place to begin our analysis of this game.  Forget all of the BS on the mainstream sports sites.  Forget all of the talk about ‘Cinderella’, about ‘David vs. Goliath’ and about this being a college redux of the film ‘Hoosiers’.  That’s all lazy sports writer metaphor, and has nothing to do with the task at hand.  It’s a convenient ‘take’ on this game but its also dead wrong.  Duke certainly has a basketball tradition to rival any school in the country not named ‘UCLA’, but this vintage Blue Devil squad wasn’t really pegged to make it this far.  It’s not like they were the dominant team at the start of the tournament and steamrolled their competition to get here.  When the tournament many felt they were the least likely of the #1 seeds to make the finals.  Certainly they weren’t as obvious a choice as a brutally talented Kentucky team, or the hot shooting Syracause Orange.  A lot of pundits thought that Kansas had the easiest bracket, though Northern Iowa dispelled that notion.  Some even thought that a dangerous #2 seed like Ohio State or Villanova had a better shot of making the finals.  This is no dis to Duke–they did what they had to do and here they are, but the notion that they’re a ‘Goliath’ isn’t quite accurate.

Nor is Butler a group of wide eyed bumpkins that have been playing beyond their abilities, upsetting teams to earn an improbable shot at the national championship.  Let’s not forget that they began this tournament as a #5, which many (myself included) thought was too low particularly relative to the other teams in their bracket.  Everyone that follows college hoops knew that Butler was a scary good and very dangerous team.  Did anyone think they’d be playing their best basketball of the season and make it this far?  Definitely not, but its not like it was a completely unfathomable scenario like an Arkansas-Pine Bluff run to the finals.

So to handicap this game properly you’ve got to forget about all of the mainstream sports media hype, forget about the team names on the jerseys and focus on this game and this game only.  Certainly you can make the case that Duke has an advantage since they’ve ‘been here before’, but last I checked Carlos Boozer, Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, Christian Laetner and the other great Blue Devils that built the tradition weren’t in the lineup.

NCAA BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP–DUKE VS. BUTLER:

After being priced correctly in their Final Four game against Michigan State, its shocking that Butler is getting so little respect in this game.  The game open with Duke a -6′ point favorite and they’ve been bet up to -7 or -7′.  Keep in mind that this game is being played on a theoretically ‘neutral court’ at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, but it just so happens to be Butler’s home town.  And lest we forget, Indianapolis is also the ‘home town’ of the NCAA itself as they’re headquartered there.  So while the stadium is an unfamiliar venue for both teams, for all intents and purposes this is a Butler home game.  So factoring in at least a partial ‘home court advantage’ we’re expected to believe that Duke should be favored here by more than any team they faced with the exception #16 seed Arkansas Pine Bluff in the first round?

This line is clearly shaded for all of the ‘public’ money that comes in on this event.  The average square will see the matchup, figure that he’s heard of only one of the two teams and bet accordingly.  To be sure, Duke was a much better pointspread team this season–the Blue Devils have gone 23-14 ATS while Butler is only 17-20 ATS.  And, of course, once the ball is tossed for the opening tip off anything can happen.  Nevertheless, there’s no way to justify Duke as such a hefty favorite and Butler represents a great value as a contrarian play if nothing else.

There’s much to suggest, however, that Butler is the better basketball team of the two.  Tactically, its not a good matchup for Duke.  The Blue Devils’ strength is their solid outside shooting–particularly from 3 point range–and their consistency at the free throw line.  They like to feed off of turnovers for easy buckets, and their offensive efficiency is at its best against a zone defense.  But against Butler almost all of their advantages are neutralized.  Butler is very good at playing half court man to man defense, and since they’re not playing against a zone Duke won’t get as many open looks from 3 point range.  Butler also doesn’t turn the ball over–they’ve the best in the nation at taking care of the ball.

Forget the fact that this is Butler’s first National Championship appearance.  If any sort of confidence issues were going to appear they would have shown up by now.  Butler knows they can compete with–and beat–any team in the country.  They’ve already beaten teams with a more efficient offense, with a more physical lineup, with a better defense, with better athletes.  They’ve certainly beaten teams with better individual talent.  With all due respect to Duke there’s nothing to suggest that they bring anything to the table that Syracuse, Kansas State or Michigan State did not.

I’m very tempted to take Butler on the moneyline at +285, but the points are such a gift they’re hard to pass up.  We’ll also play this game Under the total.  The public likes ‘Overs’ so going under in a ‘public’ event like the NCAA Finals is a good idea, and Butler should be able to control tempo and keep the score low.

PLAY BUTLER +7′ OVER DUKE
PLAY BUTLER/DUKE UNDER 129