South Region semifinals Report
Published on Thursday, 3/27/14, at 9:05 a.m. Eastern.
Updated on Thursday, 3/27/14, at 4:19 p.m. Eastern.
By Brian Edwards
MEMPHIS — From The Peabody, where I’m eating breakfast right now, it’s GameDay — Sweet 16 Style!
Scrambled eggs, sausage, really good hash browns, grapes and a banana. Not bad at all.
I’ll be joining The Chris Vernon Show as a guest live in-studio today from 11:00 a.m. Central to 2:00 p.m. Central. Gary Parrish of CBS Sports will also be in the mix. We’ll be talking bets, ballgames and much more.
Not much movement going on with the Florida-UCLA number over the last 48 hours. Most books still showing the Gators as 4.5-point favorites with a total of 137.
You can tune into Verno’s show right here.
And you can go to this page to hear the archived footage of today’s show. On the right where you see RECENT AUDIO, scroll down to the first hour when Chris and I break down all eight Sweet 16 matchups. Gary Parrish joins us in hour 2. Hour 3 is mostly just a bunch of Grizzlies talk.
Verno was quite the host last night, treating yours truly to dinner at FLIGHT restaurant in downtown Memphis. Long-time Gator scribe Chris Harry was with us at dinner, along with Yahoo’s Pat Forde and Parrish. Harry noted in his blog (Harry Fodder) that UF assistant John Pelphrey is in the mix for the USF job after that stunning turn of events yesterday.
Lots of Gators in town, particularly at The Peabody, but I haven’t seen many Flyers, Bruins or Cardinal fans around. The Stanford line has moved from three to 3.5 over the last 24 hours. Dayton up to +140 on the money line. There will be a double-digit seed playing on Saturday for the right to fight next weekend in Dallas.
Parrish likes Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona and thinks Dayton-Stanford is a toss-up (therefore the underdog — Flyers +3 or 3.5). (Yes, ATS-wise those are his picks.)
Quick-Hit news…
–KU’s Joel Embiid has made it official — he’s going pro after one year in Lawrence. Ditto for ‘Cuse’s Tyler Ennis, but now Embiid is stating on his twitter page that his mind isn’t made up yet.
–No major news on the coaching searches for Wake Forest and Marquette. Ben Howland wants both jobs and is a decent fall-back option for both schools, but he’s clearly not one of either school’s top 2-3 choices or else a deal would be done by now.
–Here’s my preview of the South Region semifinals filed at VegasInsider.com.
–And here’s my breakdown of tonight’s doubleheader in Anaheim.
–As of 4:15 p.m. Eastern, tonight’s lines looked like this:
Florida -4.5 vs. UCLA; Total: 138.5
Stanford -3 or -3.5 vs. Dayton; Total: 132.5
Wisconsin -3.5 vs. Baylor; Total: 135.5
Arizona -8 vs. San Diego St.; Total: 121.5
Friday Night from Room 319 at Goldstrike in Tunica, Mississippi (35 or so miles from Memphis)
—Here were my thoughts on the UK-Louisville line on Wednesday, as posted to Rick Bozich’s blog page at WDRB.com. Bozich has been covering Louisville sports for decades. U of L currently holds a 28-20 advantage with 4:45 remaining.
