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March Madness Final Four Preview: UCLA
Kevin Love has led the UCLA Bruins to the program's third straight Final Four. (AP Images)
You expected the UCLA Bruins to reach the Final Four. The Bruins expected the Bruins to reach the Final Four.
But as losers in the semifinals the last two years, what they do from here is anyone’s guess.
Maybe that's why oddsmakers opened them as two-point underdogs against Memphis and as 63/20 dogs to win the national championship.
"We're definitely not satisfied with going to the Final Four," Bruins forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute told the Associated Press. "We want to have a better outcome than we had the last two years. UCLA is about hanging national championship banners. Going to the Final Four is not going to cut it."
This is the third year in a row that the Bruins made it this far, but this is undoubtedly the best team overall. The Bruins were missing an inside presence to tussle with Florida last year and the year before, and they've definitely fixed that problem with freshman Kevin Love.
UCLA is listed as a +2.5-point underdog in their national semifinal vs. Memphis this Saturday. Here are some betting trends to consider:
- Memphis is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
- The total has gone OVER in 4 of Memphis's last 5 games
- UCLA is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
- The total has gone OVER in 6 of UCLA's last 9 games
- UCLA is 2-4 ATS in its last 6 games