Best College Basketball Betting Lines Today: Sidelines Best Bets For Saturday, April 2

Only three games remain in the 2021-22 NCAA basketball season, including two Final Four contests tonight, one of which is one of the most anticipated games this century.

Not only are Duke and UNC meeting in the tournament for the first time ever, it has the chance to be Coach K’s final game (or it could propel him one step closer to a championship in his final season on the Duke bench). 

But don’t sleep on the promise of a Kansas-Villanova matchup to kick the night off. The Big East and Big 12 champions have been among the steadiest teams all season with Collin Gillespie and Ochai Agbaji each looking to lead his team to immortality. 

Duke and Kansas are both four-point favorites, and when it comes to finding value, we like one favorite and one dog:

Villanova vs. Kansas

The Bet: Kansas -4

There have been stretches in this tournament when Kansas looked miles better than any other team in the country with the most dominant being the team’s second half against Miami in the Elite 8. The Jayhawks outscored the Hurricanes 47-15. Kansas has four players who scored in double digits on the season, and that’s not including Remy Martin, who won the Midwest Region’s Most Outstanding Player award. 

That gets us to Villanova’s biggest problem: depth. Only six Wildcats played meaningful minutes in their Elite 8 win against Houston. A seventh player, Caleb Daniels, played the final two minutes of the game after guard Justin Moore, the team’s second leading scorer, went down with an Achilles injury. He’ll miss the rest of the tournament, which means Villanova will need to replicate that production, and they might not have the bodies to do so. Is it possible Daniels or someone else has the game of their life and single-handedly propels Villanova to the championship game? Yes. Is it worth four points in a game against an absolutely loaded Kansas team? It’s not. Take the favorite in the early game.

North Carolina vs. Duke

The Bet: North Carolina +4

The biggest game in the history of college basketball’s best rivalry. Does it get any better than this? The answer is no, and we think this game is going to live up to the hype with North Carolina at the very least keeping it close enough to cover the number. They could win outright. 

This is a very different North Carolina team than the one that Duke beat in Chapel Hill in early February. Since then, they’ve only lost twice, they’ve covered 10 of 14 games, and they beat Duke handily at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They’ve always been a dominant team down low, and they’ll need to win the rebounding battle somewhat handily to take Duke down, but the elevation of Caleb Love and RJ Davis at the guard position has been season-changing for the Tar Heels. Both guys have 30-point games in the tournament, and Duke will need to put together one of its best defensive efforts of the season to stop them if they get going again tonight.

Duke, like UNC, ranks among the best teams in the country in points scored per game and assist to turnover ratio. They’re the favorite for a reason, but they’ve played three close games in the tournament so far, and their only convincing win was a failed cover against CSU Fullerton. This one should be very close, and we like getting points when a game feels more like a toss up. Take the Tar Heels.