Ad Disclosure
The Final Four will wrap up on Saturday night with Duke and Houston battling it out in primetime for the final spot in the National Championship Game.
This is a matchup between 2 of the absolute best teams in the country. Both are analytical darlings of slightly-different pedigree — Duke is ranked No. 1 on KenPom and Houston is ranked No. 1 on BartTorvik. It’s shaping up to be a hard-fought game between 2 programs who are desperate to get to the mountaintop.
Houston vs. Duke: DFS predictions
Below are 3 picks for Saturday’s Final Four game between Houston and Duke that can be found on Dabble Fantasy. If you’re new to Dabble, here’s SDS’s exclusive Dabble promo code (SDS2) to help you earn a welcome bonus when you sign up!
Kon Knueppel, Duke: More than 14 points
Duke presents some pretty interesting matchup challenges for Houston in this game. Particularly in the frontcourt with Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach. With so much attention going to those 2 players, I think Knueppel might be in position to have a big role offensively in this game. First off, he’s been known as an elite shooter since his high school days and that has born out more in recent weeks. Since Feb. 8, Knueppel is shooting 46% from 3-point range.
Houston has an elite defense, but the Cougars are willing to concede a high volume of 3-point shots. Houston ranked 318th in defensive 3-point attempt rate this season. If they let Knueppel shoot, he’s going to burn them. In any event, Knueppel has gone more than this projection in 7 of his last 9 games. Some of that is due to increased usage when Flagg was hurt, yes. But he’s also scored 20+ points in back-to-back NCAA Tournament games even with a relatively-modest 3-point volume. Even if it may appear to be a hot streak, I think this recent run of play from Knueppel is sustainable given his role and talent level.
Khaman Maluach, Duke: More than 7 rebounds
As I wrote about earlier this week, offensive rebounding has been crucial to Duke’s success — or shortcomings — this season. No one has been more important to those efforts than Maluach, who enters this game ranked 7th nationally in offensive rebounding rate, per KenPom. He averaged 7.2 rebounds per game overall during conference play, so this projection is right in line with his average.
Houston wants to play a slow, methodical game. On one hand, that leads to fewer possessions, fewer missed shots and fewer O-board opportunities for Maluach. But on the other hand, that should lead to a half-court game, which gives Maluach time to get into position against Houston’s undersized frontcourt. Maluach is pretty good as a defensive rebounder as well, of course. The pace of this game should lend itself to of plenty half-court rebounding opportunities for Maluach on both ends of the floor.
J’Wan Roberts, Houston: Less than 10 points
J’Wan Roberts has been pretty efficient as an interior scorer this season, but this is looks like a bad matchup for him. Roberts gets his points, generally speaking, in 3 ways: at the rim, in the mid-range and at the free-throw line. Duke has awesome rim protection, defends the mid-range as well as anyone and hardly commits fouls (17th nationally in defensive free throw attempt rate).
Roberts has also scored less than this projection in 4 of his last 5 games. With Maluach and Flagg patrolling the frontcourt, I think Houston will look elsewhere for its offense in this game. Roberts’ minutes recently have also been fairly erratic — he played in just 16 in the Elite Eight against Tennessee. But even if Roberts has a full workload, I’m not sure Houston’s game plan will be relying on him to score in this matchup.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
