College Basketball Wooden Award Watch: How to Bet UNC’s RJ Davis & Duke’s Kyle Filipowski

Two of the nation’s best players for two of the nation’s best teams reside in North Carolina.

North Carolina stands atop the ACC standings (15-3) behind the supernova shot creation of RJ Davis, while Duke sits in second (14-4) behind the consistent two-way play of Kyle Filipowski.

Is either player worth a look in the National Player of the Year markets? And how would you bet them on North Carolina betting apps?

The Case for RJ Davis

It was a classic letdown spot for the Heels. They were coming off back-to-back double-digit wins over Virginia Tech and Virginia and were playing at home against Miami as eight-point favorites.

But North Carolina can’t take its foot off the gas, holding a slim one-game lead over Duke in the ACC standings while hunting for a top-two NCAA tournament seed.

While guys like Harrison Ingram (2-for-8 shooting) and Armando Bacot (1-for-6 from the charity stripe) had a slow night, the senior guard from White Plains, New York, poured in a Dean Smith Center-record 42 points on 14-for-22 (7-for-11 shooting).

He drained four consecutive triples in a second-half stretch to hold off the Hurricanes.

And with that performance, Davis entered his name in the Wooden Award ring, now holding the second-shortest odds to win the award behind Zach Edey.

It’ll be tough for Davis to overcome Edey in the voters’ eyes, but he deserves recognition as one of the nation’s most dominant players.

The Heels run what I call a pace-and-post offense. The guards push the pace, trying to score in transition or get the ball to Bacot in the low block.

Davis is elite at both. He dishes out over three assists per game with a sub-10% turnover rate. He also generates over 1.2 PPP (75th percentile) on over four transition opportunities per game (73rd percentile).

However, what makes Davis special is his on-ball shot creation.

He shoots 40% from 3, generating 1.2 PPP on off-the-dribble 3s (91st percentile) and 1.4 on catch-and-shoot 3s (98th percentile). He’ll cook you in the middle of the court, generating .88 mid-range PPP (72nd percentile). He thrives in isolation (1.0 PPP, 80th percentile) or coming around off-ball screens (1.25 PPP, 87th percentile).

Davis is near-perfect with the dribble and has a silky smooth shooting stroke.

He’s arguably the best pure scorer at the power-conference level, and his 22 points per game are a huge reason why the Heels are a national title contender.

Davis is not an elite defender, but he’s solid at closing out on shooters and rarely fouls while snagging over a steal per game. He ultimately does his job for a mediocre Power Five defense.

But his offensive impact is impossible to ignore.

So, now that we’ve established Davis as a dominant offensive player for a potential Final Four squad, is there a path to the Wooden Award?

Yes.

Davis must average close to 30 per night on 50%/40%/90% shooting splits, and North Carolina must win out. Davis needs to shred Duke at Cameron in the ACC season finale, making a statement on national television.

Then, he must be named ACC Tournament MVP for the ACC regular season and tournament champion Tar Heels.

At the same time, Purdue needs to drop a game in the Big Ten tournament behind a dud from Edey.

If you think Davis and the Heels can satisfy all those requirements, the 40-to-1 odds offered by DraftKings is a steal.

The Case for Kyle Filipowski

Of course, the one man that can stop Davis is Filipowski.

Filipowski is essential to the Blue Devils because Jon Scheyer’s offense revolves around the secondary actions in the screen-roll game.

Filipowski is the team’s main roll man, and he’s thrived in that role, scoring 10 of his 17 points per game in the paint, generating 1.15 roll-man PPP (65th percentile) and dishing three assists per game out of the short roll (19% assist rate).

He’s also a fantastic stretch five, shooting 35% from 3 and opening up driving lanes for Duke’s backcourt to get downhill. The spacing he provides is why Duke leads the ACC in 3-point shooting (40%) and offensive efficiency (116).

By EvanMiya’s Bayesian Performance Rating system, Filipowski is the only ACC player more valuable offensively than Davis.

But Filipowski doubles as the ACC’s third-most valuable defensive player. He averages 2.6 stocks per game while keeping his fouls down. He’s a killer isolation (.78 PPP allowed, 77th percentile) and post-up defender (.58 PPP allowed, 77th percentile), and he’s versatile enough to defend at all three levels.

So, according to KenPom’s ACC POY rating system, Filipowski is the only conference player more valuable than Davis.

Therefore, is there a path for Kyle to overtake Edey – and several others – in the Wooden Award race?

Honestly, no.

From an advanced analytics and team cohesion perspective, Filipowski is arguably more valuable to his team than Davis. But from a pure numbers perspective, he can’t keep up with Davis or Edey.

He’s only averaging 16/8 on relatively average efficiency numbers. He’s posted eight double-doubles this year, while Edey has 20.