Illinois and Houston meet in a Sweet 16 matchup Thursday featuring one of the hottest offenses in the country and one of the nastiest defenses left in the March Madness field.
The market opened with the second-seeded Cougars as a small favorite, around -2.5 to -3.5, with the full-game total in the 139.5-point range for this South Region matchup.
That total screams a tighter, lower-possession game than the ones Illinois has been playing lately.
The third-seeded Illini have been perhaps the most explosive teams in the tournament through the first two rounds, scoring 1.38 points per possession and dropping 105 and 84 points in their wins over No. 14 seed Penn and No. 11 seed VCU, respectively.
Houston is one another level than those two teams, though, allowing No. 15 seed Idaho and No. 10 seed Texas A&M to shoot a combined 31.5 percent from the floor and 22.2 percent from deep while winning by 29 and 31 points, respectively.
So far this season, only three teams rank higher than the Cougars on the defensive end, according to KenPom, and teams on their level have given the Illini fits this year.
Michigan, one of the only teams rated higher than Houston on defense, handed the Illini their worst loss of the season on Feb. 27, holding them to just 70 points in a row.
UConn, the 11th-ranked defense in the country, held Illinois to a season-low 61 points in November at Madison Square Garden in a neutral-site game.
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Expect something similar from Illinois on Thursday night.
The Illini have looked unstoppable against weaker defenses, but Houston has the star power, personnel, discipline and physicality to drag this game into the kind of halfcourt fight that usually pulls scoring down.
The play: Illinois Under 70.5 points (-166, DraftKings)
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Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst across many sports. He’s particularly knowledgeable about the big three — MLB, the NFL and the NBA.
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