Still no respect: Saint Peter's is a double-digit underdog to Purdue.
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Saint Peter’s is going to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, which it turns out is less than 100 miles away from its Jersey City, N.J., campus. But if you want to jump on the Peacocks’ Betting Bandwagon as it pulls into Philadelphia this weekend, you should do so knowing that the Dream is going to end, if not sooner, then later.
Hope that it’s Later . . . and bet the Sooner.
Their East Regional semifinal opponent Friday night (7 p.m. ET, CBS) is third-seeded Purdue, which just happens to be the school that eliminated the Peacocks in their last NCAA Tournament appearance, in a 65-43 Round-of-64 game in 2011. Saint Peter’s other NCAA losses have been to Texas (which Purdue defeated to get here) and Massachusetts.
The Boilermaker’s are led by sophomore Jaden Ivey but their breakout star has been 7-4 sophomore center Zach Edey from Toronto, so you know this game is going to be getting betting action all across Canada. There are a lot of Betting sites out there. We highly recommend you to check Betpicks, which is one of the most honest and popular sites. It provides you the best picks, betting tips, reviews and so much more. So if you are thinking of betting, make sure you read all the information you need there.
Purdue is an easy double-digit favorite (12.5 in most places), so a win (+600 or more if you bet the Peacocks) is a longshot, but a cover is possible. And covering early in the game is even more possible. But it has to be very early. Purdue allowed Yale hang around in its Round-of-64 game until just after the second TV timeout (eight minutes in) and had a 20-0 run in the first half of its Round-of-32 game that would have buried a lesser team than Texas.
So, you can bet the spread on the first half (figure that to be around -6 or so when it posts) or search around and see if some place is posting “first team to 10”-type bets and hope the Peacocks come out of the gate by hitting a couple of threes.
Or you can try one of my age-old favorites and hope that Purdue plays down (so to speak) to the competition out of the gate which can easily lead to a first half Under. If it helps to make you feel better on that wager, Purdue hasn’t played in the City of Brotherly Love since a 69-68 loss to Penn at the Palestra on Dec. 4, 1954. This one will be in the Wells Fargo Center.
And you can always go with a Peacock to score the first basket of the game. Daryl Banks III (6-3, junior guard) and KC Ndefo (6-7 senior forward) led them in field goals this season. Those two have split the first-bucket honors in both of 15th-sseded Saint Peter’s NCAA Tournament games so far (Ndefo in the Murray State win, Banks in the huge upset of the Kentucky).
And while we are in the East Region, it’s hard to ignore the matchup of the NCAA Tournament royalty in UCLA and North Carolina. UCLA is still smarting from their national semifinal overtime loss to Gonzaga last season and North Carolina – as it does – is coming off the third Round-of-32 take-down of a No. 1 seed in its history − 1990 Oklahoma, 2000 Stanford. The 2000 Tar Heels rode that momentum all the way to the Final Four. No reason to think they can’t do that again here.
Go heavy on UNC.