The Purdue Boilermakers haven’t had the greatest of luck in the regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament for quite some time now. Save for reaching the Elite Eight back in 2019, Matt Painter saw each of his prior two teams come up short. Online sportsbooks currently have the Boilers installed decided -106 favorites to represent the East Region in the Final Four. All that stands in their way is the Cinderella of the 2021-22 dance otherwise known as the St. Peter’s Peacocks. This little known school out of the MAAC already took down the mighty Kentucky Wildcats, and then pulled a wire-to-wire job over Murray State in a game they closed 8-point underdogs per the closing betting odds. But now that reality has set in, will the clock strike midnight or will the Peacocks be able to see it all the way through? I think Shaheen Holloway has his kids ready to go. Should that be the case, points should be tougher to come by.
Take this Sweet 16 matchup in live on CBS at 7:09 p.m. ET from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA on Friday, March 25, 2022. BookMaker.eu will have NCAA basketball odds available for this and every game lined up for today’s NCAA Tournament schedule.
NCAA Tournament Odds at BookMaker.eu
St. Peter’s Peacocks +12.5
Purdue Boilermakers -12.5
Total 135
Odds Analysis
Linemakers are yet to move the betting line for this 15/3 Sweet Sixteen matchup regardless of St. Peter’s being the side that’s taken most of the early action. Purdue hit the board as 12.5-point chalk, but the number remains untouched even though the Peacocks have taken 68 percent of the bets and 65 percent of the money. Back in the opening round, Kentucky hogged a majority of the bets and money, and yet the betting line still moved in the direction of St. Peter’s. This time around, it seems a bulk of the action taken has come from public bettors and not from more respected sharp money accounts. The pro’s sitting back and watching could be a good sign for the Boilermakers. The total has fallen a half-point from the opener down to 135. St. Peter’s cashed a pair of over tickets on its unforeseen trek to the Sweet 16, while Purdue split for total bettors against Yale and Texas respectively.
St. Peter’s Peacocks
Peter’s has jumped up to the No. 102 team in the country per the Pomeroy Ratings. Naturally, they’re the lowest ranked team that will be lacing up their shoes in the Sweet 16. More known pre-tourney as a team with a poor offense (No. 226) and lights out defense (No. 28), it’s the former that allowed for it to score a pair of upsets en route to reaching the tourney’s second week for the first time in program history. The offense drained 50 percent of its shots versus Kentucky, and followed it up by dropping 70 on the Racers by way of getting to the line 31 times and hitting at a 74 percent clip. Alarming however last time out was allowing Murray State to drain eight from deep. Give that up versus the Boilers, and it’ll be lights out!
Purdue Boilermakers
The Boilermakers left a bad taste in their supporter’s collective mouth by failing to cover all three games in the Big Ten tournament. That showing was all but forgotten last week when it plastered Yale 78-56 as 16.5-point favorites, and backed it up with a hard-fought covering win against the Longhorns. Jaden Ivey more or less put the team on his back versus the Bulldogs in going for a team-high 22 points on 6 of 13 shooting, but it was the team’s twin towers in Zach Edey and Trevion Williams that led the team to victory against a stout Texas defense combining for 33 points and seven rebounds. Oscar Tshiebwe disemboweled the Peacocks defense with 30 points and 16 boards which makes it a no brainer to hit the behemoths player props with confidence.
Betting Prediction
As much as I’d like to think St. Peter’s has it in them to make a game of this, I’m not entirely sold. Only 18 double-digit seeds have ever made it to the Elite Eight in the history of the tournament, and I’m not so sure the Peacocks have the infantry to become the nineteenth. That being said, I don’t think they get embarrassed. The defense will have had a good amount of time to recover for the task that awaits. They likely won’t be able to limit PU’s bigs down low, but I don’t foresee Sasha Stefanovic and Co. going HAM from deep against the nation’s No. 16 ranked 3-point defense. It likely won’t be nearly as easy for St. Peter’s to score on a questionable Purdue defense either now that the Boilers have two full games of film to see how Doug Edert and his mates go about their business. Peter’s will give it their all. In the end, it won’t be enough but the defensive effort should be enough to keep this one under the total.
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