Seth Davis' Final Four picks against the spread

GLENDALE, Ariz. – And now … the end is near. We have reached the Final Four, and your preferred prognosticator has been riding the waves of March in vertiginous fashion. I opened up a big lead, plummeted during the second week, and steadied myself over the weekend. I am now a full two games over .500 for the NCAA tournament. I only need to get one of the final three correct to finish in the black.

We’ve got a great pair of games on tap for Saturday at State Farm Stadium. It’s highly unusual to see one point spread this big, much less two, for the Final Four. But we’ve got two titans in town who have been on a collision course towards Monday night all season. Will they get there? Or will their underdogs have the last bark? Behold my precious prescience:

No. 1 Purdue (-9.5) vs. No. 11 N.C. State, 6:09 p.m., TBS.

When I dialed up coaches who had scouted the Final Four teams to ask their opinions about the quartet that made it to Phoenix, a coach who faced N.C. State made this