The Purdue Boilermakers have been in the top ten for much of the season, and they are the epitome of a "battle-tested" squad, having been through the wringer in both non-conference and Big Ten play. The Old Dominion Monarchs have passed a couple of big tests themselves, however, when venturing outside of Conference USA, and that might mean something as they move into Round of 64 action in the NCAA Tournament. Tip-off at the XL Center in Hartford is scheduled for 9:50 PM ET, and while TBS televises the game, BetAnySports customers can place wagers on it, as it is in progress, with the state-of-the-art software from Live Betting Ultra.

Purdue comes into this game with a record of 23-9, and they have taken the measure of many highly-ranked foes, including Michigan State, Maryland, Iowa and Wisconsin. Coming down the stretch, they weren't bad, winning 14 of their last 16 before suffering a second loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament.

Old Dominion won both the regular season and tournament titles in Conference USA, which was generally considered to be pretty wide-open. They did not close the regular season strongly, losing to Southern Miss and UAB, but they had already clinched the top tournament seed. When it was time to turn the light, they did so, even though their three C-USA tourney wins over Louisiana Tech, UAB and Western Kentucky came by a total of nine points. They currently stand with a record of 26-8, although their pointspread record left much to be desired (13-20-1 ATS).

In the March Madness betting odds that have been posted on this game by the people at BetAnySports, the Boilermakers are laying a lot of points:

Purdue Boilermakers -12.5
Old Dominion Monarchs +12.5

Over 127 points -110
Under 127 points -110

The first thing we should establish here is that Old Dominion is a very good defensive team, and Jeff Jones' squad is especially proficient when it comes to defending inside the three-point arc, where they have allowed just 43.5% shooting, which is seventh-best in the nation. Not that they are too bad guarding against triples either - yielding just 32.5% (68th).

Maybe teams will steer their offense to the outside against such a defense; maybe not. Purdue has 7-3 center Matt Haarms, who has made 67% of his two-point attempts and is ranked 38th in the individual category of Offensive Rating. But the fact is, Purdue is going to have to get a big effort out of 6-1 guard Carsen Edwards or the offense is going to wind up underachieving. There are only five players in the entire country who have taken a higher percentage of his team's shots when he is on the floor, and he has tossed up 319 three-pointers.

So it would be important to know how he's done lately from beyond the arc, since we don't see him continually attacking this ODU defense down the lane. Well, since the beginning of February - a period that spans eleven games - Edwards has gone 23 of 102 from beyond the arc (22.5%), and on that basis, the Monarchs may just let him do that all night long, since they are one of the top 40 defensive rebounding teams in the country (that's out of 353, folks).

Old Dominion has covered just one of its last nine games, and they probably define the term "winning ugly." They certainly don't shoot it all that well (their 44.5% from two-point range is horrid), and when you get beyond first team all-C-USA performers Ahmad Caver and BJ Stith (son of former NBA player Bryant Stith), their scoring is very thin. But those guys are pretty capable players, and ODU is at least serviceable from downtown (35.3%).

Maybe the most important thing to remember here is that Old Dominion's game plan will be dedicated to reducing the number of possessions, and we especially think that will be the case as they are the underdog here. They are 316th in terms of offensive tempo, and Purdue isn't a heck of a lot faster. So we will see some long possessions, which will work to ODU's advantage as they keep things close enough to grab this number. And the under might be worth a small bite as well.

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