Bring on Duke: Arkansas-Pine Bluff Wins Play-In Game

Coach K's team will be a huge favorite for Friday's first-round game. (AP Images)

The University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s first-ever NCAA Tournament will now last until at least Friday night after the Golden Lions beat Winthrop 61-44 on Tuesday night in the NCAA Tournament play-in game in Dayton. Now the SWAC tournament champion gets a date with South Region No. 1 seed Duke on Friday in Jacksonville, Fla. – bet on that game with Bodog’s college basketball odds.

At 18-15, UAPB has the fewest wins of any team in the field of 64, and its 15 losses are tied for the most with Houston of Conference USA (Houston and UAPB are the only two teams in the field with under 20 wins). The Golden Lions are a remarkable story, as they started the season 0-11. All 11 of those losses came in road games, as the school traveled the country playing some quality programs such as UTEP, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Missouri and Kansas State – all five of those schools are in the Big Dance. Then UAPB started Southwest Athletic Conference play with three more road games, meaning the Lions didn’t play a home game until Jan. 16 and had just nine home games all season.

Of course no No. 16 seed has ever beaten a No. 1 seed, and Duke (29-5) figures to be at least a 20-point favorite on Bodog’s college basketball odds come Wednesday.   The Blue Devils and Golden Lions do have a few common opponents this year. UAPB lost at Georgia Tech by 12 and at Arizona State by 17. Duke won two of three meetings with the Jackets this year but lost by four in Atlanta. And the Blue Devils beat visiting ASU by 11.

Arkansas-Pine Bluff is not a good offensive team, shooting barely better than 41 percent from the floor. It doesn’t have a dominant scoring option but has five players who average at least 8.1 points, led by Terrance Calvin’s 10.4 ppg. And the Golden Lions were just No. 324 in the nation (out of 334 teams) by making 4.1 three-pointers per game. But UAPB is among the Top 20 in the nation in rebounding margin and a very good defensive team. Duke is among the Top 25 teams in the country in scoring offense and in three-point field goal percentage defense.

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