The Kansas Jayhawks outlasted the Duke Blue Devils 85-81 in overtime in the Elite Eight to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament Final Four in San Antonio. Duke was a 3.5-point favorite coming into this game, so Kansas won its moneyline backers a nice chunk of change with the win. The game went over the total of 157 even before the overtime period started.
Kansas will now face the Villanova Wildcats in the Final Four on Saturday. The betting odds for that showdown will be released soon by BetDSI Sportsbook. Villanova should be around a three-point favorite in this game. The winner will go on to the NCAA Tournament Championship Game and face either Loyola-Chicago or Michigan.
This game was pretty tight the whole time with neither team having a double-digit lead throughout the entirety of the game. Duke looked like it was going to pull out the win in the final minute of regulation, but a Sya Mykhailiuk three-pointer tied the game up in the last few seconds. Kansas took over from there in overtime.
The key for the Jayhawks in this one was their rebounding. Even though Kansas doesn’t have a ton of size, the guards were able to find some room to crash the boards and it paid huge dividends. Kansas had an incredible 17 offensive rebounds in the game and outrebounded Duke by 15 over the course of the game. The most impressive part of the performance was Kansas did it without its primary big man. Udoka Azubuike fouled out after just 19 minutes of action, forcing Kansas to have four players play over 40 minutes in this game.
At the start of the NCAA Tournament, Kansas was given odds of +1700 to hoist another banner according to BetDSI. Villanova came into the tournament as the overall favorite to win it all at +400.
