Yale vs Auburn Predictions, Picks, and Odds: Defense Takes Centerstage in March Madness Slugfest

Styles make fights. The phrase first caught popularity in boxing, but it has become a quick way to describe a game in just about any sport. 

The No. 13 Yale Bulldogs meeting the No. 4 Auburn Tigers will be a fight because of their differing styles in Friday's March Madness picks. 

Their mascots may as well describe the fight as the Bulldogs want to plod along. Meanwhile, the Tigers would love to turn this one into a track meet.

In recent history, Ivy League teams have been able to dictate that methodical pace when they reach the March Madness bracket. The sample size is small, but the reasoning makes sense. They simply need it, and nothing an opponent can do will change that.

Let’s trust Yale to slow things down in Spokane as we examine the March Madness odds and dish out our Yale vs Auburn predictions for Friday's first-round matchup.

Yale vs Auburn best odds

Yale vs Auburn picks and predictions

The Yale Bulldogs somewhat need a slower pace. They rely on a rotation of six players, a seventh for spare minutes.

If thinking the Bulldogs might hang with the Tigers based largely on 3-point luck, think otherwise. Yale shot 34.6% from deep this season, an okay enough rate, but the Dawgs took 3-pointers on only 35.3% of field goals, well below the national average of 37.3%.

In a game with about 65 possessions, that is two fewer looks from long-range than most teams would take. That may seem hardly noticeable, but that is effectively a point’s swing when considering all factors. Giving up a point per game is, obviously, a questionable choice.

It is one Yale has committed to and one the Auburn Tigers will encourage. The Tigers held opponents to looks from beyond the arc on only 33.3% of possessions, with foes making those shots just 29.8% of the time. 

So, more than ever, the Bulldogs should slow this down. And there is a precedent for doing so.

A year ago, Yale faced Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. That Bulldogs team averaged 66.2 possessions per game, No. 224 in the country — compared to 64.5 and No. 328 right now — and hit the brakes against the Commodores, dooming that game to a total of 133 when the Over/Under was 146.

In 2019, Yale actually preferred playing at pace, but when it went up against LSU, it again tried to slow things down. The game had 75 possessions, but with two of the 70-fastest teams in the country, that was slower than anticipated, falling four points short of the pregame total of 157.

Go back to the Bulldogs’ first NCAA appearance under James Jones (coach since 2000) in 2016. They cracked an Over in their first-round upset of Baylor, but without that consistency against Duke in the next round, they nearly stopped the game. That seven-point loss saw only 62 possessions, falling 12.5 points short of the pregame total.

Jones has found his recipe against superior competition: Reduce the number of possessions to minimize the effect of the talent gap and see what happens at the end. As a result, three Unders have cashed in Yale’s last four NCAA Tournament games.

Other Ivy League teams have taken the same tact. Both Princeton and Penn dragged out games in 2017 and 2018, respectively, with Penn’s loss to Notre Dame in 2017’s first round featuring exactly 60 possessions. Both games went Under their totals, making for five Unders in the last seven Ivy League games in March Madness.

This may strike you as an anecdotal approach to handicapping this game, but the overarching themes hold up. Outmatched teams shrink the game against blue bloods. It is that simple, and Jones has seen it work.

Styles make fights, and this fight will be condensed, more likely to see 64 or 65 possessions than the 67 KenPom predicts. Anything short of 65 possessions should portend an Under, especially given Auburn’s defensive emphasis and Yale’s failures from long-range.

My best bet: Under 140.5 (-108 at BetRivers)

Yale vs Auburn same-game parlay

Under 140.5

John Poulakidas Under 10.5 points

Yale +12.5

+585 at FanDuel

DraftKings offers a more conservative look at this same-game parlay, with John Poulakidas’s points prop at 11.5 and Yale listed as a 13-point underdog. The 11.4% jump to this FanDuel version justifies the risks of those edges.

Fading Poulakidas does not need much more explanation than acknowledging he makes 2.4 threes per game, which makes up 52.6% of his scoring. Yale has only one other genuine 3-point threat, August Mahoney, so Auburn will know who to focus on around the arc. That should discourage Poulakidas, and any discouragement of him from deep will lead to a reduced scoring total.

The same could be argued for Mahoney, but fading his points prop instead of trusting Yale against the spread would greatly reduce this payout. Even without 3-point shooting, Yale should cover this hefty number.

It is simply too large for a game that should be played slowly. Jones has kept the Bulldogs within this number in all four of his NCAA Tournament games, partly because of this preferred approach.

Learn how to bet a same-game parlay with these helpful tips and strategies.

Yale vs Auburn spread and Over/Under analysis

This spread opened with Auburn favored by 12.5 on Sunday, ticking up to -13 at some books by Monday before dropping back down mid-week. Yale has been a multi-score underdog only twice this season — and an underdog just six out of 27 times — but let those two occurrences embolden some trust in the Bulldogs. They lost by 15 points as 11-point underdogs at Gonzaga, and they suffered another 15-point defeat as 15.5-point underdogs at Kansas.

In other words, facing Auburn should hardly scare Yale.

The total opened at 138.5 and climbed as high as 141, only to settle at 140.5. That move upward reflects trust in the Tigers’ pace, a fair thought, but not one that meshes with Jones’s postseason preferences.

Yale vs Auburn betting trend to know

As head coach, Bruce Pearl is only 3-6-1 ATS in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Find more college basketball betting trends for Yale vs. Auburn.

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