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West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Duke Blue Devils
The second of two national semifinals is usually the Final Four’s featured Saturday matchup. Such is the case when West Virginia battles Duke in Indianapolis. Click here to bet on this game at Betus.com

The Week That Was: West Virginia
Basketball junkies could live a long time and not see another game like the one West Virginia played last Saturday at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.

Placed in the East Regional final against the Kentucky Wildcats, coach Bob Huggins knew that his Mountaineers would have to defend really well in order to knock off the top-seeded Wildcats. As it turned out, West Virginia did play solid defense, but it’s also hard to deny that Kentucky missed many makeable shots. Kentucky crushed West Virginia on the offensive glass, 22-9, and used those extra rebounds to kick the ball to wide-open shooters. However, the Cats were cold in upstate New York. They hit only 4 of 32 3-pointers and missed their first 20 attempts behind the arc. Kentucky hit 19 of 35 shots inside the three-point line, but the long ball didn’t drop. As a result, the second-seeded Mountaineers marched on to Indianapolis, 73-66.

The game was also weird because the Mountaineers did something remarkable in the first half against Kentucky. WVU hit 8 of 15 3-pointers, enabling the Big East Tournament champions to remain competitive despite failing to hit a single two-point shot before halftime. (That’s not a joke.)

The Week That Was: Duke
The Blue Devils and coach Mike Krzyzewski are headed back to the Final Four for the first time since 2004. A gritty, blue-collar effort from a team normally thought of as a bunch of soft, finesse-oriented players enabled Duke to defeat Baylor, 78-71, in the South Regional final on Sunday.

Duke’s Lance Thomas – a very unheralded and sometimes criticized forward – produced back-to-back offensive rebounds which led to game-breaking three-point field goals from guards Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer. It was because of Thomas that Duke snapped a 61-61 tie inside the four-minute mark of regulation and powered past the Bears down the stretch. Duke did hit big shots, but not before the Blue Devils got to work on the glass and outworked a long and active Baylor team that was playing in Houston, a relatively short commute from its campus in Waco, Tex.

To put the importance of offensive rebounding in perspective, Duke snagged 22 offensive rebounds and converted them into 23 second-chance points. Just as instructively, Duke rebounded 22 of its 39 missed shots, which is better than 50 percent. That’s an amazing performance on the glass, and it carried Coach K to his 11th Final Four at Duke.

Outlook & Pick:
Duke has better pure shooters, but West Virginia is long. The Mountaineers have multiple 6-foot-7 defenders with large wingspans that can clog passing lanes and make it hard for shooters to get clean looks. Duke’s Jon Scheyer will need to get free against the 1-3-1 zone WVU coach Bob Huggins is likely to throw at him. On the other side of the divide, West Virginia – despite its three-point shooting festival in the first half of the Kentucky game – is not a good shooting team. The Mountaineers’ best offense is often a missed shot followed by an offensive rebound. Considering the fact that Duke used its own rebounding prowess to defeat Baylor, it’s safe to say that offensive rebounding will be a very big key in this national semifinal. Ultimately, West Virginia has been living on the glass for larger portions of this season. Give the Mountaineers a very slight edge.

College Basketball Betting Pick: West Virginia
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Butler Bulldogs vs. Michigan State Spartans
The 2010 Final Four tips off Saturday evening at Lucas Oil Stadium, as the hometown Butler Bulldogs will take on the Michigan State Spartans in a very even matchup. Click here to wager on this game at Betus.com

The Week That Was: Butler
Butler carried the banner for mid-major programs by working its way to the first Final Four in school history. Coach Brad Stevens, at the young age of 33, led his team to college basketball’s promised land by overseeing a masterful defensive effort in a 63-56 defeat of Kansas State last Saturday. The seven-point win in the West Regional final brought out the very best in a Butler team that wins with a very simple formula: defense, resilience, and late-game composure.

For the third straight NCAA Tournament game, Butler led for much of the proceedings but then fell behind with less than six minutes left in regulation. Just as they had done against Murray State and Syracuse, the Bulldogs faltered as the second half wore on, but regrouped to pull out a close win in the final few minutes.

In this game against second-seeded Kansas State, the fifth-seeded Butler boys trailed, 52-51, with just under five minutes left. Then, they clamped down on defense and held KSU to just two points in the next four and a half minutes. Butler’s guards held the Wildcats’ top two scorers – Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente – to just 32 points on 11-of-30 shooting.

The Week That Was: Michigan State
The Spartans, behind legendary coach Tom Izzo, are headed to their sixth Final Four in the past 12 seasons, an absolutely remarkable feat in the frail and extremely competitive world of major college basketball.

Michigan State punched its ticket to a second straight Final Four by topping Tennessee, 70-69, in a thrilling Midwest Regional final last Sunday in St. Louis. The one-point win carried the fifth-seeded Spartans past the sixth-seeded Vols in a game that looked like a matchup of evenly-seeded teams.

Neither team ever held a double-digit lead, as MSU and Tennessee fought until the final horn to see who would advance to Indianapolis. Tennessee had a chance to take the lead with 12 seconds left, but UT’s Scotty Hopson missed a tiebreaking free throw attempt. Michigan State rebounded the ball and sped downcourt. Forward-turned-ballhandler Draymond Green made a nifty pass to teammate Raymar Morgan on the right low block. Morgan drew a foul and hit a free throw to give Sparty the lead with 1.8 seconds left. After a timeout, Tennessee missed a halfcourt heave at the buzzer, and Michigan State had done the deed again.

Outlook & Pick:
Both of these teams were number five seeds in their respective regions, so they’re evenly matched. Butler is playing in its home city and is healthier than the Spartans, who will be without point guard Kalin Lucas and will have two players – forward Delvon Roe and guard Chris Allen – in great pain on Saturday. (Both Roe and Allen will play.) Michigan State’s big advantage comes from its coach. Tom Izzo has earned a reputation for being the best March coach of the past decade, better than Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, who will be coaching the second game on Saturday in Indianapolis. This game should be played in the 50s and be very close. If Michigan State has a chance to take the lead in the final seconds, Izzo will draw up a set play that will get the job done. Sparty will win by a single basket.

College Basketball Betting Pick: Michigan State
Article Courtesy of Dave D – Betus.com RSS Feed – Featured on Handicapperspicks.com