NCAA Championship 2016: Updated Title Odds Going into Final Four
With the 2016 Final Four just around the corner, North Carolina is the clear favorite to win it all.
If the past few years are any indication of what's to come, though, that means the Tar Heels are doomed on Saturday night. Kentucky was the overwhelming favorite heading into the 2015 Final Four before losing to Wisconsin. The year before that, Florida was far and away the best of the Final Four teams, but the Gators lost to Connecticut in the national semifinal.
Could No. 1 North Carolina follow suit with a loss to No. 10 Syracuse? It's unlikely—Odds Shark lists the Orange as nine-point underdogs—but what are the odds it could happen?
We're glad you asked because we've set odds on each of the four remaining teams to win the national championship.
These odds are slightly longer than what you would find at a sportsbook, but that's because we have the decency to sum to 100 percent rather than trying to profit off our loyal followers. Even so, Syracuse's odds aren't too shabby, especially compared to the pretournament odds, which are also included for your amusement on each of the following slides.
Syracuse Orange
1 of 4
Pretournament Title Odds: 20,000-1
Current Title Odds: 9-1
The Road Ahead: Syracuse is hoping the third time's the charm after going 0-2 against North Carolina during the regular season. Those games weren't nearly the blowouts you might expect, though.
The Orange led by six in the final nine minutes of the first game and trailed by just one with 2:24 to go in the second contest. The Tar Heels were just too tough down the stretch, but with proper application of the full-court pressure that flustered both Gonzaga and Virginia this past weekend, maybe there's another trick up head coach Jim Boeheim's sleeve.
If the Orange do beat North Carolina, they might have an even better chance of beating Oklahoma or Villanova than UNC does because of how poorly teams shoot from three-point range against them (30.8 percent).
Reason to Buy: Threes and D. When Syracuse shoots better than 32 percent from beyond the arc and limits the opposition to 71 points or fewer, it is 18-0 this season.
Those aren't difficult thresholds to meet either. The national average for three-point percentage this season is 34.7, and the national scoring average is just 73.0 points per game. And given Syracuse's adjusted tempo that ranks 318th nationally, one would expect the Orange to allow fewer points per game than the national average.
Reason to Sell: Guys like Malachi Richardson and Trevor Cooney are so sporadic that even 32 percent from three-point range was too much to ask of Syracuse on 11 different occasions this season. And if you think North Carolina's poor three-point defense will solve that problem, it wasn't the case earlier this season. The Orange shot 29.0 percent in the first game and 25.0 percent in the second one. It might be foolish to expect those numbers to change for the better in Houston's NRG Stadium.
Will Cut Down the Nets If... Richardson is scoring efficiently, Tyler Lydon is blocking shots, Tyler Roberson stays out of foul trouble and rebounds well, Michael Gbinije plays a pair of solid all-around games and Boeheim goes to his full-court pressure at the most opportune moments. That's asking a lot, but anything short of Syracuse's A-game isn't going to cut it against North Carolina, Oklahoma or Villanova.
Oklahoma Sooners
2 of 4
Pretournament Title Odds: 17-1
Current Title Odds: 17-4
The Road Ahead: Clearly, the sharks in Las Vegas could not care less about what happened in Hawaii back in early December, because despite Oklahoma's 23-point beatdown of Villanova from nearly four months ago, the Sooners are a two-point underdog on Saturday, according to Odds Shark.
That game against the Wildcats is a tossup, but it's the subsequent game against (presumably) North Carolina that led us to give Oklahoma worse odds than Villanova. The Sooners simply don't have the frontcourt prowess to keep the Tar Heels from abusing them in the paint. Oklahoma's best-case scenario would be squeaking by Villanova before watching Syracuse upset North Carolina.
Reason to Buy: The Sooners are lethal from three, and they have one of the two best players in the entire country. That's why so many people were picking Michigan State to win it all, right? This year's Sooners and Spartans are the only two teams in the past six seasons to shoot at least 42.0 percent from three while making at least 300 triples. And whether you have Buddy Hield or Denzel Valentine at No. 1 on your Player of the Year ballot, you should have the other at No. 1a.
Oklahoma has made at least 10 three-pointers in eight of its last 10 games and might be the one team in the country that can make it rain in NRG Stadium, considering it shot at least 40 percent from deep 23 times and made at least 10 threes in 24 games this season—and 14 of those 24 games came away from home.
Reason to Sell: Oklahoma commits more than its fair share of turnovers and doesn't do a great job of protecting the defensive glass. As a result, the Sooners attempted 100 fewer shots than their opponents did this season. Those extra possessions could be a major problem, regardless of which combination of the remaining teams they draw.
Will Cut Down the Nets If... Hield (46.5), Jordan Woodard (45.9) and Isaiah Cousins (42.0) all live up to their three-point percentages. When the full three-headed backcourt shows up, Oklahoma is nearly impossible to beat. If any member of that trio emerges as a weak link, though, the Sooners become just an above-average team.
Villanova Wildcats
3 of 4
Pretournament Title Odds: 18-1
Current Title Odds: 15-4
The Road Ahead: The next stop on Villanova's road to redemption is avenging the blowout loss to Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor by shooting a little better than 4-of-32 from three-point range this time around. Then in the finals, it's either an old Big East rival in Syracuse or the North Carolina team that knocked the Wildcats out of the 2009 Final Four. As long as Villanova's involved, there's a bad-blood storyline to leverage.
Reason to Buy: No team is hotter than Villanova. North Carolina may look more unbeatable with its offense, but the Wildcats are eviscerating opponents on both ends of the court with ball pressure and three-point shooting—save for the game against Kansas, which they were still able to win despite shooting 22.2 percent from downtown.
That's because Villanova's offense is much more balanced and poised than Oklahoma's. The Sooners are marginally more likely to destroy an opponent with threes, but Villanova can get the job done with a high degree of accuracy from two-point range or the free-throw line while scarcely committing turnovers. Add in the turnover-forcing defense, and the only reason it might be surprising to see Villanova still dancing is because of early exits in recent years.
Reason to Sell: It's because Villanova attempts so many three-pointers that its two-point attack can do the damage it does. If the Wildcats exclusively relied on Josh Hart, Daniel Ochefu and Mikal Bridges to score inside, teams would dedicate more energy to shutting down those avenues. As a team, though, they take more than 43 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, so they struggle to score on nights when the long ball betrays them.
Nine times this season, Villanova shot worse than 27.5 percent from three-point range, averaging 65.2 points in those games—compared to 81.3 in the other 29 games. Well, Oklahoma and North Carolina usually have 65.2 points by the time they get off the bus, so that type of offensive letdown would be Nova's undoing.
Will Cut Down the Nets If... Jalen Brunson (6-of-10) and Ryan Arcidiacono (11-of-19) keep shooting well from three. Long-range contributions from Kris Jenkins would also help, but if the starting backcourt keeps playing this well on both ends of the floor, that might be enough for Villanova's first title since 1985.
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North Carolina Tar Heels
4 of 4
Pretournament Title Odds: 7-1
Current Title Odds: 1-1
The Road Ahead: Of the two remaining hurdles, the first one certainly appears to be the shortest. Never mind the No. 10 seed next to Syracuse's name—North Carolina is simply the better team on paper with elite offensive rebounding, efficient scoring and better two-point defense than was advertised during the regular season. And the Tar Heels should certainly have the upper hand in the championship game as well between their interior prowess and the effect of NRG Stadium on three-point shooters.
Reason to Buy: In terms of win shares per 40 minutes, Marcus Paige is the worst player in North Carolina's primary six-man rotation. That isn't meant as an insult to Paige—the dude is averaging 14.0 points and 3.8 assists while shooting 48.1 percent from three in the tournament—but is rather meant to point out the absurd amount of talent on this roster.
Brice Johnson, Justin Jackson and Joel Berry have each scored in double figures in 14 of the last 15 games. There are just too many weapons on this team to have any hope of shutting them all down.
Reason to Sell: Even in the process of averaging 89.3 points per game in the tournament, North Carolina is no stranger to lackluster starts. The Tar Heels led Florida Gulf Coast by just one point at intermission. They trailed Providence by two early in the second half and fell behind Notre Dame with 13 minutes remaining.
That's a dangerous game to play. What happens when they face an opponent that takes better advantage of their spurts of mediocre play? Or what happens if that turbo boost late in the second half never comes and they have to play a nail-biter down to the wire? North Carolina has looked good in winning each of its first four tournament games by a margin of at least 14 points, but the Tar Heels are 5-6 in games decided by six points or fewer.
Will Cut Down the Nets If... They keep playing with swagger. If the Tar Heels weren't already the best team in the field before the tournament began, they are now. North Carolina's biggest remaining enemy is North Carolina. When this team plays with confidence and urgency, it makes a lot of people look stupid for insisting there were no elite teams this season.
Of course, if avoiding a letdown were as easy it sounds, Virginia would still be dancing and Northern Iowa would have at least made it to the Sweet 16. North Carolina is the clear favorite to win it all, but so was Kentucky at this point in last year's tournament. There's still the slight matter of playing the games.
Stats courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
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