Case of the Mondays: Kansas Crashes Out in Blowout Fashion

by Ricky Dimon - 4/2/2018

The clock finally struck midnight on Loyola-Chicago. But while the Ramblers were at least competitive almost the entire way in their Final Four outing, Kansas never came close to booking a spot in Monday's National Championship. A busy week in sports begins with Michigan vs. Villanova, and it will conclude with what is perhaps the most highly anticipated Masters ever.

All odds provided by BetOnline Sportsbook .

Kansas . Kansas vs. Duke in the Midwest Region final was the best game of the NCAA Tournament-at least up to this point. Kansas vs. Villanova? Not so much. The Wildcats surged to a 22-4 lead and never took their foot off the gas pedal, finishing with a ridiculous 18 three-pointers (on 40 attempts). KU head coach Bill self insists he is not going to dwell on the disappointing end, instead mostly tipping his hat to a superior team. "I'm not going to think sour about this at all," Self assured. "We've been in enough Elite Eight games and lost them. So getting here was obviously special, and everything would have had to go (right) the way Villanova played. We would have had to play a perfect basketball game." Villanova is a -7 favorite over Michigan on Monday night.

New Orleans Pelicans . There is some good news for the Pelicans, because Anthony Davis did not shave his unibrow-that was all just one big April Fools' joke. Davis is still the same Davis. But the rest of the news is bad. New Orleans has lost four games in a row, falling from sixth place to eighth in the Western Conference. It is suddenly just one game away from being passed by Denver for the final playoff spot, and even the 10^th-place Clippers are now just two games out. The Pelicans are +10000 to win the Western Conference; Golden State is a -110 favorite.

Semyon Varlamov . The Avalanche announced last Saturday that starting goalie Semyon Varlamov is out for the season with a lower-body injury. Varlamov was injured a day earlier during his team's 5-0 win over the Blackhawks, when he collided with Chicago forward Tomas Jurco late in the third period. He was 24-16-6 with a 2.66 goals-against average and .920 save percentage in 2017-18. Jonathan Bernier (18-11-3, 2.86 GAA, .913 SVP) will assume primary goaltending duties for the Avalanche. Colorado is a +175 underdog at Los Angeles on Monday.

Los Angeles Dodgers . Los Angeles could be off to a worse start to its National League title defense as a split of a four-game series with San Francisco is nothing disastrous. But it could have been so much for the Dodgers. After all, they gave up a grand total of two runs across four contests and still somehow managed to lose twice. The Giants opened the season with consecutive 1-0 shutouts before getting shut out themselves 5-0 on Saturday and 9-0 on Sunday. The Dodgers (Ryu) are -112 favorites at Arizona (Walker) on Monday night.

Chelsea . There is no drama regarding who will come out on top of the English Premier League in 2017-18. There hasn't been for a while. All that's left is for the clubs wallowing well below Manchester City on the table is to duke it out for top-four spots and berths in the 2018-19 Champions League. That effort is not going well for Chelsea, which lost at home to Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 this past weekend to leave it eighth points behind the Spurs for fourth place. The Blues are 2-5 in their last seven EPL matches and have only eight more on the schedule with which to make a late run. Premier league leader-and soon-to-be champion-Man City is +300 to win this year's Champions League.

Roger Federer . Federer has fallen from the No. 1 ranking, which he held for a little more than a month dating back to his title in Rotterdam. Rafael Nadal did not play in either of the two recent Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami, but he also did not have many points to defend from his 2017 results at those two tournaments. Federer, on the other hand, won back-to-back titles in Indian Wells and Miami last season but lost in the final of the former and in his opening match at the latter. Thus, there was a change at the top when the new ATP rankings were released on Sunday night, with Nadal regaining the No. 1 spot and Federer going to second. Nadal is a -110 favorite to win the French Open.

Beau Hossler . Both Hossler and Ian Poulter needed to win the Shell Houston Open this past week in order to earn a spot in the Masters. Each one had chances. Playing together in the final round on Sunday, Hossler and Poulter faced similar putts on the 18^th green with the former leading by one stroke but putting for par while Poulter lined up a birdie opportunity. After Hossler just barely missed what would have been the clincher, Pouter sank his from 20 feet to force a playoff. "I did think I'd made it," the 23-year-old commented, "but it hung out there. Ian basically had the same putt and there's no way he was going to miss it after watching my ball. I gave Ian the perfect read to make his putt. I knew he was going to make it." Hossler shot himself out of the first extra right away by going from a bunker to the water and carding a triple bogey. Rory McIlroy is a +1000 favorite to win the Masters. Tiger Woods is a +1200 fifth choice.

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Case of the Mondays: Kansas Crashes Out in Blowout Fashion

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