NCAA Tournament 2015: Picks, Odds Advice and Schedule After Thursday's Sweet 16

Round two of the Sweet 16 will only get better, folks.

Sure, Thursday's action was nothing short of thrilling. Kentucky further proved its dominance by stomping West Virginia 78-39, and the other three contests were close affairs.

Now peek at the Friday slate, though. Gonzaga-UCLA is worthy of Adam Morrison-esque tears. Teams led by legendary coaches such as Louisville's Rick Pitino and Michigan State's Tom Izzo are in action, never mind those Duke Blue Devils and Mike Krzyzewski.

On paper, Friday might just prove to be the best day of the tournament. With Thursday in the books, let's take a look at the final day of Sweet 16 action.

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2015 Sweet 16 Friday Schedule and Odds

Time (ET)	Matchup (Odds)	TV	Pick
7:15 p.m.	No. 2 Gonzaga (-8.5) vs. No. 11 UCLA	CBS	Gonzaga
7:37 p.m.	No. 4 Louisville (-3) vs. No. 8 North Carolina State	TBS	NC State
9:45 p.m.	No. 1 Duke (-6) vs. No. 5 Utah	CBS	Duke
10:07 p.m.	No. 3 Oklahoma vs. No. 7 Michigan State (-2.5)	TBS	MSU

Odds courtesy of Odds Shark as of March 26 at 1 p.m. ET.

Spread to Avoid: No. 1 Duke (-6) vs. No. 5 Utah

Look, Krzyzewski and Duke look great.

Just not at these odds.

The Blue Devils have had it easy to this point. Robert Morris wasn't a challenge, and a supposed defensive-heavy San Diego State squad never stood a chance because despite the hype surrounding the Aztecs, they never appeared athletic enough to stop Duke.

Utah might stand a better chance.

As efficiency numbers at KenPom.com show, the Utes are sound on both ends of the court:

Team	ADJ OFF	ADJ DEF
Duke	2	45
Utah	18	7

Not only are those numbers impressive, as is an upset of Georgetown, but the Utah players aren't intimidated by Friday's task, either.

"Honestly, I've played against players better than them. It's a mind game," guard Delon Wright said, per Kareem Copeland of the Associated Press. "Just don't think about them being a storied program or anything. They're regular players like us. They just happen to go to a big name school."

Wright has every, well, right, to be confident considering he leads the Utes in scoring at 14.7 points per game on average. The first step is belief, after all. 

Still, it's doubtful Utah can stop Jahlil Okafor, who has scored at least 21 points in his first two tournament games so far. So long as Duke has a strong shooting night, it figures to come out on top. Against a rather large spread, though, these Utes figure to hang tough.

Prediction: Duke 74, Utah 70

Safest Bet: No. 3 Oklahoma vs. No. 7 Michigan State (-2.5)

Don't get cute and bet against Tom Izzo.

Just four spots rest between the Oklahoma Sooners and Izzo's Michigan State Spartans in ESPN's RPI rankings. One can argue Oklahoma has yet to face a true test, though, first taking down Albany before 11th-seeded Dayton. The latter was a home game for the opposition, but a mismatch nonetheless.

The same can't be said for the Spartans, as a triumph against Georgia led to a duel with second-seeded Virginia. There, Izzo and Co. rode strong defense to force the Cavaliers to shoot 29.8 percent from the hardwood and 23 points from Travis Trice to win by six.

Michigan State's swarming defense will create plenty of issues for the Sooners, a team continuing to lean in a heavy manner on leading scorer Buddy Hield. With his 17.3 points per game the focus after a few days of preparation, the Sooners will need to lean elsewhere to keep pace.

After all, the Spartans rank 15th in adjusted offensive efficiency at KenPom.com. Flanking Trice is another explosive scorer in Denzel Valentine, as well as a dominating presence down low in Branden Dawson.

The spread is close, yes, but it's silly to bet against a coach who is 44-16 in the Big Dance.

Prediction: Michigan State 64, Oklahoma 60

Upset Special: No. 4 Louisville (-3) vs. No. 8 North Carolina State

This one almost writes itself. 

North Carolina State isn't supposed to be here. A 40th rank in RPI, as well as 27th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 83rd in adjusted defensive efficiency at KenPom.com speak to it well enough.

Yet here the Wolfpack are after overcoming LSU by a single point and then shooting 45.3 percent in a major upset of No. 1 Villanova. Even better, the team seems to have the right mindset going into things:

"We came out today with the feeling that everybody expected us to lose to a 1-seed, but we believe in ourselves and that we're good enough to beat anybody in the country, and we went down and did it,'' BeeJay Anya said, per the Associated Press (via ESPN.com).

Friday figures to be a defensive affair, as Louisville ranks 75th in offensive efficiency but fifth on the other end of the court. So far the Cardinals have held two opponents to 55 points or less, although they did almost suffer an upset at the hands of 13th-seeded UC Irvine in the second round.

NC State has the athleticism and style to counter Louisville and keep things close, if not pull off the upset. If Louisville comes out flat again, it will end up as the upset poster child of this year's Sweet 16.

Prediction: NC State 65, Louisville 64

Stats and info are courtesy of ESPN.com unless otherwise specified.