Duke had arguably the most impressive win of the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 by throttling trendy upset pick Oral Roberts in the first round.
The Blue Devils defense flipped the switch around future first round pick Dereck Lively, who had six blocks, while the teams offense was humming by shooting 52% on two-point tries. Now, the No. 5 seed in the East Region takes on No. 4 seed Tennessee in hopes of advancing to the Sweet 16.
Tennessee’s offense continued to flounder against Louisiana in the first round, holding onto win 58-55 despite a late push from the Ragin’ Cajun, will they figure it out on a quick turnaround against the emerging Blue Devils.
Here are the odds for this intriguing second round meeting:
Duke vs. Tennessee odds, spread and total
Duke vs. Tennessee prediction and pick
Without Zakai Zeigler, who tore his ACL in the middle of February, the Vols are struggling to generate any downhill offense. The numbers may not appear severe on the surface, but schematically this team is in rough shape on offense as Zeigler had a top 10 assist rate natioanlly (36.6%).
Tennessee is a poor perimeter shooting team (244th nationally) and relies on their ability to dominate teams inside, top 10 in the country in offensive rebounding percentage.
However, Duke has the size to contend with the Vols at the rim and a noted rim protector in Lively. The Blue Devils are 30th in field goal percentage allowed at the rim and top 70 in defensive rebounding rate.
On the other side, Duke may not be an elite three-point shooting team, but they have a floor general in Jeremy Roach that can create offense and a floor spacer in Kyle Filipowski, who was quiet in the Blue Devils win in the first round.
While this total is low and the game may feature a ton of missed jumpers, I trust Duke’s offense to find more success in one-on-one situations to outpace the Vols offense that has little avenue to success against the Blue Devils interior.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
