North Carolina meets Kansas in the men’s college basketball championship game Monday night in New Orleans.
Let’s hope it does justice to the Final Four games we witnessed on Saturday night.
In a historic domestic semifinal, the Tar Heels (29-9) beat rival Duke 81-77 and ended Mike Krzyzewski’s legendary career a game before the championship finals.
Kansas (33-6), the only No. 1-seeded player to make the Final Four, defeated second-seeded Villanova 81-65 in Saturday night’s first national semifinal.
The Jayhawks opened late Saturday night as a 4-point favorite against 8th-seeded UNC in the early betting series.
The UNC Duke semifinals lived up to the hype… and then some. In a game with 18 lead changes, it didn’t seem like either team flinched at first. But Caleb Love’s huge 3-pointer after two missed Mark Williams free throws gave UNC a 78-74 lead with 28 seconds remaining. The haymaker proved that.
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Love ended with 28 points, 22 of which came in the second half.
UNC big man Armando Bacot, playing 5-18 with an ankle injury, finished the game with 11 points and 21 rebounds.
Kansas scored the first 10 points of the game against Villanova and extended their lead to as many as 19 in the first half. The Wildcats cut it to six in the second, but that was as close as it could get.
David McCormack and Ochai Agbaji led the Jayhawks with 25 and 21 points, respectively. Agbaji hit his first six 3-pointers and was 6-for-8 from the floor while McCormack added nine rebounds. The Jayhawks shot 54% for the game.
With the national championship game now set for Monday night in the Big Easy, let’s take a look at the opening betting lines according to DraftKings.
No. 8 North Carolina vs. No. 1 Kansas
Spread: Kansas -4 (-110); North Carolina +4 (-110)
money line: Kansas-180; North Carolina +155
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