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Two really good basketball tournaments have shook out and led us to this weekend, with four teams in Phoenix and four teams in Cleveland all getting ready to fight for a national title.
The Men’s Final Four goes down on Saturday, and the national title follows on Monday. In Cleveland, the Women’s Final Four tips off today and a champion will be crowned on Sunday.
Four days of big-time college basketball left — cherish these moments, folks.
There are plenty of great storylines about to play out this weekend: the UConn men’s dominance looking for a second straight national title, the Cinderella run of D.J. Burns and the NC State Wolfpack, and the historic run that Caitlin Clark and her Iowa squad are on.
Stories are great, but winners live forever. I need to find a few winners this weekend after a rough Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, and I’ve think I found a couple.
Plus, baseball season is underway and, while I know most people probably aren’t quite locked in yet, I’ll have one play for Friday’s MLB slate.
Let’s get to it.
Last Week: 0-2
YTD: 17-12
MEN’S FINAL FOUR
UConn-Alabama OVER 161.5
Saturday, 8:49 p.m., TBS
This is the second of the two national semifinal games, with NC State-Purdue starting the day.
It’s just hard at this point to see UConn, seemingly growing stronger with each passing round, getting knocked off by anybody except maybe Purdue.
The Huskies have won each of their four tournament games by at least 17 points, with three of those wins coming by 25-plus points. In the Elite Eight, UConn ripped off a 30-0 run at one point and cooked Illinois by a 77-52 final.
The reason I’m not taking them and laying the points, which is probably the right play, is just because the line is so big: 11.5 points in the Final Four is crazy.
The knock on Alabama this whole tournament is that, as good as the offense has been, the Tide can’t really defend anyone. I think the defense showed out more than people realize in wins over North Carolina and Clemson, but UConn’s got weapons at all five spots on the floor.
I think UConn could score 90-95 points on its own. It’s all a matter if the Tide could make threes and keep themselves in the game long enough to push the Huskies.
I think they will, and so I will take the over here.
WOMEN’S FINAL FOUR
Iowa -2.5 vs UConn
Friday, 9:30 p.m., ESPN
First of all, I could write for weeks about how great this matchup is. I really hope people aren’t tuning back out from women’s hoops after the LSU-Iowa Elite Eight game did 12.8 million viewers. This game will likely be better, so don’t miss it.
The UConn women are in an unfamiliar spot here: long the dominant brand in women’s college basketball, the Huskies made this year’s Final Four as a No. 3 seed and will be the underdog here against Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
It’s Clark vs. Paige Bueckers, who may have been on track to be in the same conversation as Clark before injuries derailed her last two seasons.
I think the Huskies will do a better job defensively on Clark, both with Bueckers guarding her one-on-one and as a defensive unit, the gameplan will likely be better than what LSU did, which was essentially leave Hailey Van Lith on an island guarding Clark.
Perhaps I’m a victim of the moment here, but this feel like Iowa’s time. Clark is 0-2 against UConn in her career, and this is chance to add another accolade to her list.
I think the Iowa supporting cast is stronger than UConn’s, and the Huskies don’t have a ton of depth to fall back on in the likely case that they get into foul trouble.
A great game coming here, but I think Iowa wins, covers and advances to the national title game.
MLB
Rangers +108 vs. Astros
Friday, 8:05 p.m., Apple TV+
Texas is a home underdog against the struggling Astros — sign me up.
Yes, it’s way too early to sound any real alarms if you’re Houston, but getting swept at home to open up the year is not great (unless you’re a Yankees fan, of course).
The Astros took two of three from the Blue Jays, and the bats are heating up, but the pitching has been shaky. The Rangers are the defending World Series champs, and I feel like they still aren’t getting a ton of respect this year.
Hunter Brown is scheduled to pitch this one for Houston, against Texas’s Cody Bradford. I like Bradford in this matchup, he’s likely going to be out of a rotation spot once Michael Lorenzen is ready to go, so I think he’s got a lot to prove.
Brown only got through four innings on 88 pitches in his first start of the year, and he struggled down the stretch last year after a nice start to his rookie season.
The Rangers’ lineup is pretty potent, and I think they’ll do some damage here.