The Purdue Boilermakers used an ultra-efficient offense to reach the Elite 8 of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, while the Virginia Cavaliers relied on their trademark defense to advance to the South Regional final. Something will give Saturday night when they meet for the right to move on to the 2019 Final Four. Tipoff is set for 8:49 p.m. ET from the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. It has been more than three decades since the Cavaliers (32-3) or Boilermakers (26-9) have reached the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. Top-seeded Virginia last appeared in 1984, while third-seeded Purdue hasn't gone since 1980. The Cavaliers are 4.5-point favorites after the line fell as low as four, while the over-under for total points scored is 127 in the latest Virginia vs. Purdue odds. Before you make any Virginia vs. Purdue picks, listen to what the SportsLine Projection Model has to say. 

The model, which simulates every game 10,000 times, has raked in the winnings for those following its picks. Over the past two years, the SportsLine Projection Model has returned more than $4,000 to $100 players on its top-rated college basketball picks and entered the postseason on a strong 11-5 run on all top-rated college basketball plays. It's also on fire in the 2019 NCAA Tournament, calling 14 of the Sweet 16 teams straight-up. Anyone who has followed it is way up.

Now the model has dialed in on Virginia vs. Purdue. We can tell you it is leaning over, and it has a strong against-the-spread pick that hits in well over 50 percent of simulations. That pick is only available at SportsLine.

The model knows Virginia is hungry to reach its first Final Four under coach Tony Bennett. The accomplishment would serve as the ultimate comeback after last year's postseason in which Virginia became the first 1-seed ever to fall to a 16-seed.

The Cavaliers already have faced their share of challenges to reach the Elite 8. They fell behind by 14 early and looked tentative in their first-round matchup against Gardner-Webb before pulling away behind a dominant second half for a 71-56 victory. On Thursday, Virginia battled against an Oregon club that made a late-season surge to the Pac-12 Tournament title and two NCAA Tournament victories by using a Virginia-like formula of sturdy defense and deliberate offense.

The Ducks took a 45-42 lead on a Louis King three-pointer with 5:44 left. It would be their last field goal of the game, and Ty Jerome put Virginia ahead for good at 48-45 with his own three-pointer two minutes later. Jerome led four Virginia players in double-figures with 13 points and six boards. The Cavaliers held Oregon to 37.8 percent shooting and owned a 34-31 rebounding edge.

But just because the Cavaliers boast a suffocating defense doesn't mean they'll cover the Virginia vs. Purdue spread on Saturday.

Although senior guard Ryan Cline might have been a relative unknown to a national audience, he has been a reliable contributor for Purdue all season. His 12.1 points per game are second on the team only to Carsen Edwards, and the two combined for a blistering 56 points and 12 three-pointers in the win over Tennessee. 

But Cline's second half against the Volunteers, in which he overcame foul trouble to hit six three-pointers, will go down in NCAA Tournament lore. Four of his three-pointers came in the last five minutes with Purdue trailing by either two or three points. The most important was a tightly-guarded, step-back swish with 35 seconds left that tied the game at 76. He finished with a career-high 27 points. Purdue has won and covered all three NCAA Tournament games thus far against Old Dominion, Villanova, and Tennessee.

So who wins Purdue vs. Virginia? And which side of the spread cashes well over 50 percent of the time? Visit SportsLine now to find out which side of the Virginia vs. Purdue spread you should be all over Saturday, all from the model that's up more than $4,000 on top-rated college basketball picks, and find out.