Avoid Duke or Purdue Futures in College Basketball NCAA Tournament

As the NCAA Tournament comes closer, everyone is looking to place their Futures bets and be on the right side of history.

The college basketball landscape is loaded this season with a bunch of quality teams that are Final Four caliber, but how many can cut down the nets? If you look over at the current National Championship odds, there are several teams with prices bunched together at the top of the board, but two of them stick out from the rest as bad bets.

While Gonzaga -- the betting favorite at WynnBET Sportsbook at +500 -- Auburn (+800) and Kentucky (+1200) profile as National Champions, the ladder of which I profiled last week as worthy of a bet. However, there are similar odds to Kentucky that reek of early Tournament exits, I'm referring to Purdue (+800) and Duke (+1200).

Purdue's Defense Will Cost them in March

Purdue is in good shape to win the Big Ten regular season title, and in turn wrap up a No. 1 seed in the field of 68, but I'm not buying them making a title run.

The Boilermakers have the best offense in the country, paced by future lottery pick Jaden Ivey and a pair of big men in Trevion Williams and 7'4" Zach Edey. However it's the defense that is super concerning. The team is 105th in KenPom's defensive efficiency, allowing a top 50 three-point rate and are bottom 20 in generating turnovers.

As I mentioned in last week's post about Kentucky being worthy of National Championship bet, teams that rate inside of KenPom's top 20 on both sides of the floor are likely champions. Only twice since 2000 has a champion fallen out of that threshold and they both (Connecticut and Baylor) were much closer than Purdue.

Balance wins in the Tournament, not one-sided teams, and I'm fading Purdue in the Futures market and will look for angles to play against them as the field is announced.

Duke's Trending Backwards in a Weak ACC

Duke does fit the bill of a national champion; ranking 14th in offensive efficiency and 17th in defensive efficiency.

However, the Blue Devils aren't facing the level of competition that the likes of the SEC, Big Ten and PAC-12 are trotting out on a nightly basis. Duke is the only team ranked in the AP Top 25 and have seen their numbers tick backwards in key departments like turnover rate -- forcing them at the 13th highest rate in the ACC and committing them at the 11th highest rate.

Further, the team's free throw shooting is now below 70% as a team in ACC play, down from over 76% in non conference play. The defense is limiting opponents to 27% from three-point range, but I'm not buying it as much, the perimeter defense is leaky and allow many open looks, some negative regression can be in store at the wrong time agains tthe wrong team.

The Blue Devils rely a ton on the interior offense with isolation maestro Paolo Banchero and seven footer Mark Williams, but the team has struggled against a team that has length (Florida State) and a stout pack-line defense (Virginia). There are matchups to expose Coach K's team in his last year as coach.

I'm not sure I trust this Duke team to make a run given their inability to create clean looks in the half court and generate turnovers. The team is over reliant on their size, but can be put on upset alert early in the Tournament. ShotQuality ranks the team as 16th, which factors in their shot profile, and grades their record at 17-6, not 19-4. I'm inclined to agree with the advanced analytics website and believe the Blue Devils are not as good as their record indicates.

Purdue and Duke are fantastic teams and could very well find themselves in the Final Four, each team has a future top 10, hell even top 5, pick on the roster. However, there are holes in the roster that make them not worthy of a bet at their current price.

All of Reed's college basketball plays can be tracked here, his best bets column for college basketball is 55-46-3 for +6.7 units.