This article is part of our College Basketball Picks series.
It is my supreme honor to close out this amazing college hoops season with a full analysis of tonight's Championship Game. It has been such a fun year and the tournament never disappoints, but after all the wacky results, the dust has settled with two powerhouse favorites going head to head for all the marbles. UCONN, the defending champs, do what champions do and have looked unstoppable in March. Purdue has the ultimate counter in POY Zach Edey and will give the Huskies all they can handle in what should be a classic. Let's dive in one final time as I give out a side and total best bets for tonight's title game.
Connecticut Huskies vs Purdue Boilermakers 
With the spread between 6.5 and 7.5 (depending on where you shop), I'm going to take a look at UCONN games in which the Huskies won by 7 or less. There have been eight such games this year, three losses and five victories. The most common thread to those games was limiting the amount of possessions for UCONN. In their three losses, Creighton held the Huskies to a season-low 59 possessions, Kansas held them to 60 and Seton Hall held them to 62. Villanova also held UCONN to 59 possessions in a 1-point loss. Purdue does a decent job of limiting possessions, and both teams are relatively slow from a tempo perspective despite what your eyes might tell you. Two of Purdue's three lowest possessions games have come in the tournament (61 in a 78-50 victory over Grambling and 59 in their 80-68 win over Gonzaga).
Like UCONN, all four of the Boilers' losses came away from home and generally against teams that shot lights out from three. Northwestern was 10-for-20 from three in its win over Purdue, and Nebraska was an unreal 14-for-23 from 3-point land. The loss to Ohio State was a bit of an anomaly statistically, but it was the first game the Buckeyes played after firing Chris Holtmann, so emotion played a big role in that one. Neither team defends the three-point line particularly well, and that favors one team tremendously: Purdue. UCONN's success comes inside as the No. 2-point shooting team in the country. Purdue is the No. 2 3-point shooting team in the country and can take advantage of UCONN's softer perimeter D. Creighton is the only Big East team inside the Top 50 in 3-point shooting, and we know they are responsible for one of UCONN's losses. And NOBODY in the country has a paint presence like Edey to compliment that shooting. Not only am I going to grab as many points on Purdue as possible, I will be on them on the money line as well. Repeating is hard. The Boilers ride their inside-out combo to the National Title.
College Basketball Best Bet: Purdue +7.5 (@ BetMGM)
The total is at a very interesting number. Hovering around 145, all but one of Purdue's losses went over that total with the only exception just missing at 142. Conversely, all but one of UCONN's three losses went well under 145 (134 and 135). So, one could draw a rough correlation to combine a Purdue win with an under or a UCONN win with an over play, but let's see if it is that easy. We talked about tempo above where it seems UCONN will want to speed up Purdue while the Boilers will want to slow down the Huskies, neither of which fits the team's preferred style. Of the two, Purdue seems to be the most versatile and willing to play fast with 12 games above 70 possessions in regulation (11-1 in those games), while UCONN has just four such games (4-0), three of those coming in November and December. Since 2010, only two championship games went over this total (Baylor's 86-70 win over Gonzaga in 2021 and Louisville's 82-76 win over Michigan in 2013), and the public always favors the over. Right now, 70 percent of the bets are on the over but 81 percent of the money is on the under. That tells me Joe Public is enamored with the offense from both teams, but the sharps are all over the defense and how well these teams match up. I like the value and the potential game flow pointing to the under tonight.
College Basketball Best Bet: UCONN/Purdue UNDER 145.5 (@ BetMGM)
Monday College Basketball Best Bets:
Here's a recap of my best college basketball bets for Championship Monday:
- Purdue +7.5 (@ BetMGM)
- UCONN/Purdue UNDER 145.5 (@ BetMGM)
For up-to-date information on the latest college basketball betting odds and props from multiple sportsbooks, check out the college basketball odds page on RotoWire.
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