Official NCAA tourney betting thread

And Wisc -2. Not that high on them this year but they own Oregon in the NCAAT the past few years

Irvine is good. I stayed up late last night to watch them. Well coached. Good senior player Robert Cartwright, they also have size. Very good defensively

Without Dean Wade, Kansas State could have trouble.

Northeastern whatever the number against Kansas.

Liberty and Florida also.

I’d take Yale +8 and the over. The first who knows but the over will hit.

First half unders and second half overs are the way to go

Barely realized Abilene is D1 nowadays.

I would think best 15-2 upset possibility would be young 2 seed playing #15 seed of veteran starters.

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Bestbank Tiger

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Can't tell you much about Santa Clara or Richmond as I was too young to watch those.

But I am old enough to remember the rest.

South Carolina was a weak 2 seed in 1997 and very overseeded. Coppin State was an upperclassmen led team with two players, Terquin Mott and Andre Brockington that created a good inside out combo. Contrary to what people usually think about upsets like this, Coppin State won by being the more physical team. They only went 2-13 from 3. But they got to the line 39 times and outrebounded South Carolina by 10.

Hampton was able to beat a fading Iowa State team. They got beat by a bad Baylor team in the Big 12 quarterfinal and were missing Marcus Fizer from the year before. Jamal Tinsley tried to do too much. They got up 11 on Hampton with 5 minutes to go but Hampton closed on a 12-0 run to win. Hamtpon had a guy inside named Tarvus Williams who was a good weapon and played the last 8 minutes with 4 fouls and didn't foul. Hampton was more athletic than Iowa State was.

Norfolk State over Missouri was a huge shocker and the biggest all time 1st round upset according to point spread but it exposed Missouri as a team with a weakness at forward. They were very guard heavy but Norfolk State was the bigger team inside with O'Quinn(NBA player). Norfolk had a good non conference run for a MEAC team, beating teams like TCU(NIT) and Drexel(last team out that year) and barely losing to Marquette(3 seed). Norfolk shot out of their minds in this game though, 54% from the floor and 52% from 3 and were just able to keep up all game.

Lehigh over Duke wasn't that surprising. I had watched Lehigh leading up and knew McCollum was good. Duke was way too reliant on the jump shot and just had roster/locker room issues going into the game.

FGCU over Georgetown was an example of a senior laden team being able to force Georgetown to play at a pace they didn't want to. This one was more of FGCU playing well than Georgetown playing bad. Georgetown was able to win a good Big East in the regular season and just got put out of their comfort zone. Ohio did the same exact thing to them 3 years earlier.

Middle Tennessee simply outshot Michigan State. This one was also a shock because Michigan State came in on fire, winning the Big 10 and Big 10 tourney and many had them going all the way. I don't think Michigan State came ready to play. MTSU jumped out to a 15-2 lead from the start and was able to hang on and hit big shots each time Michigan State made a run. I think this result was the end result of Michigan State letting the hype get to their heads and an MTSU team with far more talent than a typical 15 seed has and was underseeded - should have been a 14 instead of UW Green Bay.

Recap

South Carolina was overseeded

Iowa State was fading

Missouri was lacking size and frontcourt play

Duke was too reliant on jump shots and had some roster issues and locker room issues

Georgetown had to force teams to play at their pace to win

Michigan State overlooked their opponent who shot lights out