2025 March Madness odds: Back Duke, Florida in Final Four

Four teams remain in the men's NCAA Tournament, and they happen to be the best four teams in the nation.

How do you choose when those are the circumstances?

It's certainly not easy, but I feel confident that the two teams with royal blue in their color schemes will find their way to the title game. 

Here are my best bets for the Final Four.

Cooper Flagg to score 20-plus points

In a game with a low point total (136.5) and a Ken Pom projection of 68-66, Cooper Flagg scoring 20 points would mean he’s tallying nearly 30% of Duke's points. 

He gonna do that against the No. 1 defense in the country?

Since Flagg turned an ankle in the ACC Tournament, he’s only topped 18 points once. That game came against Arizona — a small team that had just one player over 6-foot-8. 

As scrappy as Houston is, it starts three guards and has nobody over 6-foot-8. 

If J’Wan Roberts, the 23-year old center who has played 170 games for the Cougars, gets in any foul trouble, it’s over for Houston. The Cougars won’t have the size or depth to handle the Duke frontline. 

Joseph Tugler, Houston's promising 19-year old, has fouled out of six games this season.

We saw Gonzaga’s Graham Ike dominate the Cougars, scoring 27 points in the Round of 32. Houston surely watched the Alabama strategy — let’s slow down Cooper Flagg! — but the Crimson Tide actually had the bodies to do it. Flagg only had 16 points, but Alabama lost by 19, as it let shooters Kon Knueppel (21 points) and Tyrese Proctor (17 points) get whatever they wanted. 

Houston’s strategy just might be the opposite: We’ll let Flagg get whatever he wants, but we will not let anyone else get open looks, especially from 3. It’s a strategy teams have employed against Nikola Jokić in the NBA playoffs.