Welcome to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
No. 8 Seed North Carolina and No. 1 Baylor begin Saturday’s second-round action with a tip-off at 12 p.m. ET. With only two games taking place before 5:15 pm ET, our staff is concentrating on two game props for the opening game.
Armando Bacot and Adam Flagler have both played key roles for their cadres this season, and now our team of game props writers are looking to earn some of their greatest strengths on the court.
Below, we use the Action Labs Player Prop Tool to compare our NCAAB projections with the props posted in various sports books.
It may seem like a big number, but I like over 13.5 rebounds for Armando Bacot against Baylor.
The talented big has surpassed that number on the glass six times in his last 10 games.
And if his skill is tantalizing, it’s his availability that I’m more interested in. If you take his last performance out in which he was pulled during a blowout by Marquette, he averages close to 34 minutes per game. This is a combination of foul problems to avoid and Hubert Davis trusts him when he picks up some early fouls.
Baylor is also suspicious in the middle, surpassing 231st nationally in defensive rebounding percentage. The loss of Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua has been felt acutely in this element of the game, with the strong forward force still with a knee injury.
Opponents snagging 8.5 offensive boards per game against Baylor, and this is where these bets will win or lose.
One last encouraging sign for over at this point was Baylor’s performance against other top rebounder. Texas ‘Christian Bishop nearly doubled his rebound average in his last meeting (11 rebounds), and Kansas’ David McCormick hit 13 rebounds against the Bears.
Shop around for the best number or juice on this game. I would play it up to -140 at 13.5 or up to 14.5 at -110 odds.
In defiance of LJ Cryer, we saw Adam Flagler take the opportunity and become the true second option on this potent Baylor insult.
Where Flagler does a majority of his damage is behind the bow. He is a 39% 3-point shooter, but is not afraid to take them, and will only take more when they start to fall.
He averages about six 3-point attempts per game, but we can see more from him here after the matchup.
The Tar Heels have been burned from the deep every season. They are allowed 237th and 3-point percentages and capitulate two percentage points more over the bow than the national average.
Our Action Labs projections have him planned to drain 3.4 of his attempts at this. That’s a huge advantage on this plus-money game.
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