NCAA Basketball: “Best Bets” for Sweet 16 matchups in 2022 NCAA Tournament
By Greg Waddell
North Carolina +2.5 vs. UCLA
Is there any backcourt left in the NCAA Tournament that you’d take over RJ Davis and Caleb Love? In hindsight, maybe we should have seen this Tar Heel run coming. UNC has won 8 of their last 9 games, including wins at Duke and against Baylor in the Round of 32.
This will be a contrast of styles – Carolina wants to play fast and UCLA wants to slow the game down. One stat category that favors the Bruins is turnovers – UNC rarely turns opponents over and UCLA is elite at taking care of the ball.
But even if UCLA wins the turnover battle, I see the Tar Heels having advantages everywhere else – they can win the rebounding battle, take and make threes (instead of the Bruins’ patented long twos), and Armando Bacot should dominate inside.
Miami -2.5 vs. Iowa State
The “pod” of the bracket we all believed was the weakest pre-tournament has given us a power conference 10 seed vs. a power conference 11 seed with a date to the Elite 8 on the line. Yay. I’ll take the team that has impressed me more during their run so far, which is the Hurricanes.
Their ball screen blitz approach really frustrated USC’s guards in round one, and I think it can have the same effect against the Cyclones’ Izaiah Brockington and Gabe Kalscheur.
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Miami went toe to toe with Auburn and took them completely out of their game, dominating the entire second half in blowout fashion. I’m not sure either team has a chance in the next round, but Miami has done enough thus far to give me confidence they can send Iowa State packing.