Final Four Predictions: Odds, Bets For NCAA Tournament Semifinals

The 2024 Final Four location and dates have long been set. Now we know which teams will be playing in this year’s national semifinals, too. 

UConn, Alabama, Purdue, and NC State are the last four teams alive for the men’s basketball national championship.

As always, BetMGM has all the basketball odds and futures markets that NCAA Tournament bettors are looking for. Your bracket might be busted, but the odds are always available. 

Final Four Odds

Final Four Predictions: NC State +9.5 vs. Purdue

If you’re just looking at the seeding differential, then sure – Purdue deserves to be a big favorite in this game against No. 11 seed NC State.

That said, anyone who has watched NC State over the last three weeks knows that the Wolfpack are playing with a ton of confidence. The inside-out ball with DJ Burns Jr. on the block has been a wrecking ball through the ACC and NCAA Tournaments, knocking out top team after top team.

Purdue presents a fascinating challenge for NC State because Zach Edey gives the Boilermakers their own dominant force down low that can challenge for frontcourt dominance and control of the game flow. The winner of this game will likely be the team that succeeds in getting the opposing big in foul trouble. 

From a bracket perspective, I like Purdue to advance. From a pure mathematical perspective, the most value in this game is probably the NC State moneyline, which is currently +350 at BetMGM.

For my own bet, I’m splitting the difference and taking NC State plus the 9.5 points. I do think it’ll be a competitive game, which makes a big number like this quite appealing.

Final Four Predictions: Alabama +11.5 vs. UConn

This UConn team is absolutely good, so I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what I’m about to say. I’m just wondering if they’re this good.

Experienced handicappers see this in nearly every season and every sport. One team is good, and then they’re very good. Sometimes, they’re even great. But as it becomes clear who the No. 1 team is, there is a huge rush to bet that team. Eventually, the college basketball odds market jumps the shark, and the price starts moving beyond what is reasonable because of the massive marketplace appetite to bet the top team virtually any price. 

I think we’ve finally reached that point with UConn. I wrote about that in the context of the futures market in the latest edition of my college basketball national championship odds breakdown, and I’m going to reinforce that here with the point spread.

Alabama can score in bunches because of how they focus on the 3-point shot. Does that mean the Crimson Tide are going to win? Probably not. But 11.5 points – up from 10.5 at open, by the way – feels like way too much to give a team that can score this effectively.

Maybe UConn wins the last two games by 40 points each, and the public continues to get rich by blind-betting UConn spreads. It’s possible. Anything is possible!

That said, the history and fundamentals say that Alabama is probably the right side in this game.