Category: NCAA Men’s Basketball

March Madness: 3 men’s first-round upsets oddsmakers expect

These spreads disagree with the selection committee’s seeding

While there are tons of complaints from fan bases across the country over how the NCAA selection committee seeded the 68 teams in the men’s basketball tournament, it appears oddsmakers don’t have too many gripes with how the matchups turned out.

As early betting gets underway for the first round of the tournament on Thursday and Friday, only three lower-seeded teams are considered favorites on the moneyline and against the spread — and even then the difference is pretty marginal.

That is, of course, unless you’re trying to fill out a perfect bracket this year or pick the right team to wager on. Then these lines become pretty significant.

Two of the teams expected to pull off upsets are No. 9 seeds facing a No. 8. The other is a No. 10 seed that should give a fits to a No. 7 seed.

Here’s a look at the opening lines via BetMGM.

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Americans plan to bet $15 billion on the NCAA tournament, and they’ll waste much of it on Kentucky

There are better ways to blow your money.

Americans will bet a whole lot of money on the NCAA tournament this year. That’s not a surprise.

To be exact, 68 million American adults (26 percent) plan to wager $15.5 billion on the men’s tournament, according to a survey from the American Gaming Association.

More surprising is the team is receiving the majority of those bets.

According to the AGA, Kentucky leads the way with a 9 percent share of bets to win the national title. If you ever needed evidence of people blindly betting on name brands, here you go.

Yes, Kentucky is a blueblood program, but it isn’t national title good anymore. The Wildcats aren’t even ranked. They’re a 6-seed in the tournament, and only one of those has ever won the whole thing.

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This isn’t driven by homers either. Sports betting isn’t even legal in Kentucky. Nor is it legal in Texas, where the second most bet-on team resides.

Texas A&M — a 7-seed — is expected to receive 8% of bets, followed by Gonzaga, UCLA and Alabama at 6 percent each. Smells like a lot of wasted money on all but the last two to me.

According to the survey, 18 million more American adults plan to wager on March Madness compared to the Super Bowl, but they’re expected to spend about half a billion dollars less.

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3 important things to consider before filling out your men’s March Madness brackets, including key injuries

Helpful information and hints to make it easier to fill out a bracket.

The time has come. You have your printed out bracket and a pen. Oh, right sorry, it’s 2023. More realistically, you have your computer and a tab open to whatever your bracket challenge of choice is. It’s officially March Madness, and it’s time to fill out your men’s NCAA tournament bracket.

Before you put pen to paper — or keystroke to keyboard — there are some things to know. Which teams are dealing with injuries at the worst time? Who is playing close to home? Which team is riding a hot (or worse, cold) streak in March?

Let’s take a look at some things you should take into consideration before hitting submit on your bracket.

Ranking all 68 of the 2023 men’s NCAA tournament teams by mascot

Let’s help you with your March Madness bracket with our mascots and team names ranking.

March Madness is HERE.

And we know the next few days until the first round of the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament will be filled with you filling out your bracket, erasing it, filling it out again, tweaking it, tweaking it again and then making last-second changes before tip-off Thursday.

If you’re into doing deep research with stats, rankings, and history involved… then this isn’t the list for you.

This is the seventh annual version of the list to help you pick your bracket based on team nicknames or mascots.

My completely non-scientific system is based on a combination of moniker creativity, how threatening the mascot is and, sometimes, the look of the costumed thing.

Away we go:

5 bets to avoid during the 2023 NCAA men’s basketball tournament

A few pitfalls for bettors to avoid over the next few weeks.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

It’s the day after Selection Sunday, a wonderful time of year for bettors. So many games and teams to choose from.

We only have a day to figure out our favorite tournament bets before the First Four begins, but don’t be in such a rush that you fall into avoidable traps. There’s action that simply isn’t worth your time or attention.

To narrow down your betting options, I browsed the worldwide web for some trends to take heed to while betting on the NCAA tournament. These are the bets I would avoid:

Chalk throughout

This is self-explanatory and really doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway. Don’t just bet on all higher seeds to win. Upsets will happen, and that actually starts with the First Four teams.

In all but one year of the First Four, at least one of the at-large teams has advanced to the second round. So expect one of Pittsburgh, Mississippi State, Nevada or Arizona State to come through on the moneyline against a 6-seed.

A top-4 seed will also lose in the first round if past years are an indication, but picking which of the 13- to 16-seed moneylines to tail is a little trickier.

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A 15 over a 2

This is one upset you might be inclined to take because it’s happened once each of the past two years. But it’s actually not all that common. Before Saint Peter’s rode a win over Kentucky to a deep 2022 run and Oral Roberts beat Ohio State in 2021, a 15-seed hadn’t beat a 2 since 2016.

Before that, it had only happened seven other times in tournament history. This year, I’m expecting Arizona, Texas, Marquette and UCLA to all safely advance to at least the second round.

Public bets against the spread

According to Action Network, tournament teams that receive 60 percent or more bets against the spread have a 41.2 percent winning percentage ATS since 2016.

Simply put, when the public is incredibly convinced a team is going to cover, that team probably isn’t going to cover.

Longshot futures

Since tournament seeding began in 1978, only four teams with odds longer than 20-1 have won the title, with UConn in 2014 being the longest at 100-1.

That narrow’s this year’s field considerably if the trend holds. Only 10 teams have odds shorter than 20-1 at BetMGM: Houston (+550), Kansas (+800), Alabama (+800), Purdue (+1100), UCLA (+1200), Arizona (+1200), Texas (+1600), UConn (+1600), Gonzaga (+1800) and Baylor (+1800).

This stat also makes sense when you consider no team seeded higher than No. 8 has ever won the tournament.

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1-seed upsets

The teams that end up as 1 seeds got there for a reason. This year, that’s Alabama, Houston, Purdue and Kansas. Let’s not go betting on upsets over No. 1s just for the sake of it.

These teams will always be your safest bets to not only win each round, but also win the entire tournament. Since 1985, 24 of the 37 national champions have been 1 seeds — including 12 of the past 15 winners.

That’s not to say every 1 seed will advance to the Final Four; 2008 is the only year where each Final Four team was a 1-seed — like I said, avoid chalk. But there’s a pretty good chance one of the four top-line teams will end up as the last standing.

And that’s it from me. Happy March!

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5 Cinderella candidates (College of Charleston!) in the men’s NCAA tournament

Shine off those glass slippers, folks. Let’s head to the Big Dance.

The bracket for the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament is now live, so it’s time to dig into the matchups. Cinderella stories are always one of the best parts of postseason college basketball. Last season, Saint Peter’s charmed the nation on a dream run that took the small Jersey City school to the Elite Eight with wins over powerhouses like Kentucky and Purdue.

This year, the field of 68 feels more balanced than ever before, meaning we could be ripe for another double-digit seed making its way through the bracket.

Let’s take a look at some of the most likely candidates to become Cinderellas in 2023.

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4 teams with the hardest path to 2023 Men’s Final Four (including Duke)

Which top teams have their work cut out for them this March?

The bracket is set, the ball will soon tip and the madness is just about here.

But when the dust settles, which of the 68 teams will make it to the 2023 men’s Final Four in Houston? Kansas, Houston, Purdue and Alabama remain the favorites after Selection Sunday, though they’ll each have their own tests ahead of them.

Still, the top-seeded teams tend to have easier paths to the first weekend in April than anyone else.

So who has the toughest road to the Final Four?

Let’s break it down by region using KenPom projections to see which of the elite teams in each has their work cut out for them.

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Betting guide for the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament First Four games

Best bets for the NCAA men’s tournament First Four games.

The NCAA men’s field of 68 is finally set, which means it’s time to start filling out brackets beginning with the First Four games.

In the South Region, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is playing Southeast Missouri St. for a chance to play 1-seed Alabama in the first round. The other 16-seed First Four game is between Texas Southern and Fairleigh Dickinson in the East, where Purdue is the 1 seed.

The 11-seed First Four games are between Mississippi State and Pittsburgh in the Midwest and Arizona State and Nevada in the West.

Bettors don’t just want to know who’s moving on, they want to know the best ways to make money. So below is my best bet for each matchup, and I also included my best guess for who will move on.

5 decisions (Kansas out West!?) the NCAA men’s selection committee absolutely got wrong

There are no explanations that make these decisions any better.

The brackets have been revealed and the bickering has begun.

Not over who will reach the Final Four of the men’s NCAA tournament, but over how the selection committee justified the way it built its bracket of 68 teams on Selection Sunday.

While there were plenty of correct calls — Alabama as No. 1 overall seed, UCLA earning the No. 2 in the West and Pitt making the big dance —there were several baffling decisions out of the NCAA’s HQ in Indianapolis.

Let’s run through the five most-egregious calls the selection committee made and try to make sense of them.

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North Carolina quickly declined an NIT invitation after historic NCAA tournament miss

North Carolina turned down an NIT invitation after missing the NCAA tournament.

The North Carolina men’s basketball felt the weight of being a preseason disappointment on Selection Sunday.

After entering the 2022-23 college hoops season as the top-ranked preseason team, the Tar Heels missed out on the 2023 NCAA tournament and quickly declined a spot in the NIT.

It’s a dramatic fall from grace for the legacy program that so much was expected from early in the season. They’re actually the first team to miss the NCAA tournament after being ranked No. 1 in preseason since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in the 1980s.

North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis cited a desire to “focus on moving ahead” to future priorities as reasoning for not joining the NIT field.

Well, Tar Heels fans will have to wait until next year to see how North Carolina rebounds on what’s a historically disappointing season.

The team probably would’ve fared quite well in the NIT, but we’ll never know how well. At least the Tar Heels won’t have to worry about preseason ranking pressure next season?