......Las Vegas Sports Consultants made Duke a 7-5 favorite to win the title and a 2.5-point favorite to beat West Virginia in the semifinals on Saturday night, oddsmaker Kenny White said.

"They've probably had the easiest run," White said of the Blue Devils (33-5), who beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff, California and Purdue before beating Baylor 78-71 on Sunday to reach the Final Four.

White said either Duke or West Virginia would likely be favored over Butler or Michigan State in the finals.....




http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/news/story?id=5039078

As they should be. Duke is the national champ...no doubt.

shocking

Prescott wrote: White said either Duke or West Virginia would likely be favored over Butler or Michigan State in the finals.....

He's really going out on a limb there claiming the 3rd and 5th ranked teams coming into the NCAA Tournament would be favorites of a pair of 5-seeds

I'm a little surprised that WVU isn't the favorite heading into this game after beating Kentucky.

It'll be WVU or MSU.

I have been reading some great stuff from Basketball prospectus and Ken Pomeroy

Statistically these teams are near identical.
Both are extremely efficient offensively, but are poor shooting from two. They make up for their misses with high offensive rebounding numbers and made threes.

Conversely, Duke is the best in the country at defending against the three pointer. WVU made 10 of them vs. Kentucky, they will need a similar effort against a better defensive team on the perimeter.

Duke struggled mightily against Baylor, who was ranked 7th in 2 pt. FG percentage against. WVU is ranked 2nd in this category. So Duke will likely also have to shoot 45% plus from three to win.

The major difference is free throws made. The teams shoot a near identical amount of free throws but Duke shoots 7% better from the line. Accounting for 5-6 points more per game given their number of attempts.

WVU didn't make a first half two pointer against Duke, they will likely struggle on intitial attempts but will capitalize on the offensive glass. Duke will also likely miss a bevy of two point shots, but will get put back points.

Key factors:

WVU will put Duke in foul trouble, but will WVU shoot well enough from the FT line?
Duke will have to hit an average amount of three point shots to win, can they hit more than 8?
Both teams will rebound well, but will WVU be able to create transition points like Baylor? or will they have to rely on their set offense to score.

Baylor got points in transition to take the lead, WVU will likely have to do the same because Duke's defense is good and they can afford to put WVU on the line.