Joe Fortenbaugh shares gambling advice for the Final Four

It's time to mix the money with Joe Fortunbaugh,

with Mollie and Ha on 1043, the score.

That's how Joe Fortunbaugh does it.

No for play, right to business.

I'm happy to know the way your mouth is.

That's what you get for waking up and making it up.

And shake the clear of the clothes now.

That's what you get for waking up and making it.

Mollie and Ha one, oh four, three, the score.

Joe Fortunbaugh is our man in Connecticut

who used to be in California,

but we know him as our man in Vegas.

So, therefore, the song.

And it's complicated, but it makes sense.

Joe does a great job on ESPN,

and he's gonna give us a final four breakdown.

Joe, what a joy, what a pleasure.

So great to catch up with you, buddy.

Everybody needs a man in Connecticut.

When you rank in like the top 50 states in order,

you'll be hard pressed to find someone

who ranks Connecticut anywhere outside of the top 40, okay?

Like that, that's Connecticut.

So, I'm glad that we could bring the great people

of Chicago the best that Connecticut has to offer.

Are your buddies with Danny Hurley yet?

Yes, tell us, Joe.

Danny Hurley, I'll tell you what.

I, and this will be a nice segue into that game.

Danny Hurley has done a tremendous job.

17 and one against the spread in his last 18 tournament games.

You go back to 2023, UConn is 17 and one against the number.

There's no coach that's had this much success against the spread.

And I've ridden a lot of that, okay?

Now, there's a couple of years work two years ago

when they won the title, I was not riding it.

I was getting my face kicked in,

but I wrote some of it this year.

But here's the thing you need to keep in mind,

and this is why I like Illinois.

Let's get excited, Chicago.

Joe Florenball finally coming on the air

and picking the hometown team.

We like Illinois, a line I minus one and a half,

because you're essentially paying a Danny Hurley tax.

Everybody is aware of how good UConn is in the dance.

Everybody talks about it.

Everyone talks about Hurley.

You get a bunch of people in a room

that aren't from Connecticut or Illinois,

and you just say, who do you like in this game?

You're going to hear this nine times at a 10.

I mean, how do you go against Hurley in Connecticut, right?

How do you go against Hurley in Connecticut?

The bookmakers baked that into the price.

This should be Illinois minus three and a half

for minus four.

Instead, it's minus one and a half.

I'm taking the Illinois.

They got more options on offense.

They don't sell a whole lot, which is huge.

I think you can also look to the under 139

and a half in this game, but the Illinois are my pick.

What about the second game, Joe?

That seems like a more complicated two number one seeds.

Arizona doesn't have any obvious flaws to their game.

Michigan has probably been the best team in the tournament.

So I'm going to give you a side,

and then I'm going to give you some other stuff

that you might like that could be fun

that we can better early in the game.

So the side, I'm going to play Arizona plus the one and a half.

Here's what stands out to me more than anything else.

Michigan's three point shooting.

Four tournament games, they're shooting 44% from deep.

To put that in the perspective,

Belmont was the number one team in the country

and three point shooting this year at 41%.

Okay, so this is three percentage points better

than the number one team in the country.

What does that tell us?

Law of Average is says that numbers coming down

at some point might not happen in the Arizona game,

but I'm willing to take it back that it does.

And if it does, we're going to be on the right side

of history with Arizona.

Arizona's game takes place in the mid range and at the rim.

They've got a higher floor.

They're going to have a lot better look.

Michigan very dependent on the three point shot.

So if the shot's falling, Arizona's got a big math problem

on their hands, but if it's not falling,

the Wildcat take this one.

So we're going to play Arizona plus the one and a half.

Now, two other bets I want to throw your way.

There's a prop out there.

It pays five to one, six or more points scored

in the opening minute.

I would make that bet.

These two teams play at a very fast pace.

They can get up and down.

And I think they come out laying in this game.

Again, Michigan bombs a lot of three.

So if I'm right on Arizona in that Michigan's not going

to make their three, okay, fine, maybe we lose this bet

that's five to one.

But if they do come out and hit them threes early,

especially one in the first minute,

we're well on our way to get in six points.

You can always get some fouls in there as well.

So I like that bet.

I'd also play a couple of bets related

to this being a close game late.

You can make a bet that the final score,

the winner wins by between one and five points.

That pays around plus one, 20.

I would look to that.

I'd also look to the overtime option,

which I did see earlier in the week at 10 to one.

It's falling.

People have been betting it.

It's around eight to one, not great value,

but I wouldn't be shocked if this one went to overtime

given how good these two teams are

and how closely this should be contested.

So that's how I would look at the marquee game

that happens in the second half of the final four.

Joe, quickly Dustin thought in the first game,

the under in the first half might be worth looking at.

Do you agree?

Yeah, anytime I'm looking at an under in a game,

which I am looking at in that game,

I'll start looking at first half under as well.

Now they used to just chop that price in half,

but the books are smart now.

They realize more scoring takes place in the second half

because of all the fouling latent games,

so you might get a lower number.

But again, you do play inside these big cavernous buildings,

which Vegas has accounted for this,

but at the same time, you know,

the depth perception could be off on the shot.

And again, Yukon has been known to get off

with some slow starts here,

and we saw that happen with Illinois against Iowa.

So yeah, I do not think that's a bad play.

A rare smart decision by producer Dustin, nicely done.

Thank you, Joe. You're the best, buddy.

That's Joe out of fun. Good stuff.

Love you, Chicago.

Thanks for having me. Go a line high.

There you go. And, you know, the I-O-J-O-E.