Las Vegas Sun

By Case Keefer

Wed, Mar 22, 2017 (2 a.m.)

What the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament in Las Vegas lacks in excitement compared to the first, it makes up for in convenience.

Lines no longer stretch out of sports books with gamblers waiting to put in plays; betting apps no longer lag because of overwhelming demand. The crowds are cut substantially as the tourists head home and the tournament draws closer to the Final Four, leaving a more serious gambling feel to the regional semifinals and finals.

The three-day break between rounds calls for a deep dive into what’s transpired so far. Talking Points combed through the numbers and results to find some of the most pertinent information bettors can use to make informed decisions on the tournament going forward.

Read our 16 things to know before betting the Sweet 16 below, and come back Thursday for picks and analysis on every game.

• Let’s start with the always requested records. Through 52 games this NCAA Tournament, favorites have gone 42-10 straight-up and 25-27 against the spread. As far as totals, overs have gone 34-18.

• As one could glean from that number, overs are where the betting public has done the most damage in what’s been a successful tournament overall for the casinos. Parlay bettors who tied overs together from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning did particular damage, as there was one stretch of 12 straight games that eclipsed the total. The run started with a game that went over by a half-point — Villanova’s 76-56 victory over Mount St. Mary’s where the total was 132 — and ended with USC’s 66-65 win over SMU with the total closing at 141.

• Although Wisconsin’s win over Villanova and South Carolina’s knockout of Duke will be the most remembered upsets so far, USC’s round of 64 victory and Xavier’s 91-66 clobbering of Florida State stand as the biggest upsets by the odds. The Trojans and Musketeers both closed as 7.5-point favorites and plus-310 (risking $1 to win $3.10) on the moneyline at the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook. They are the only two teams to have overcome more than 3-to-1 pregame odds for a victory.

• Two upperclassmen, Kansas senior guard Frank Mason III and North Carolina junior forward Justin Jackson, are now co-favorites to win the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award at 7-to-1 apiece. Five other players are offered at 10-to-1 or less — Arizona’s Allonzo Trier, Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen, Kansas’ Josh Jackson, UCLA’s Lonzo Ball and Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-Goss. Duke’s Luke Kennard and Villanova’s Josh Hart opened as the favorites before their teams’ untimely demises.

• Kansas and North Carolina are now the co-favorites to win the tournament, with both sitting at 4-to-1 at the Superbook. Betting lines consider the Jayhawks slightly more likely to reach the Final Four next weekend in Phoenix, as they’re priced at plus-105 to come out of the Midwest Region. North Carolina’s updated price to win the South is plus-110.

• Odds are 10-to-1 that all three surviving No. 1 seeds — Kansas, North Carolina and Gonzaga — reach the Final Four. The price is only 4-to-1 that none of them make it that far. Gonzaga is the relative long shot here, as it’s now a slight underdog to come out the West Region. No. 2 seed Arizona has moved to the favorite at plus-120, with Gonzaga trailing at plus-140.

• For some more proposition wagering fun, odds give it almost exactly a 50/50 chance that the Final Four is composed of all teams ranked in between a No. 1 and No. 4 seed. The biggest threat to crash the party is No. 8 seed Wisconsin, which is plus-250 to prevail in the East Region.

• There’s only one team left not given at least a 5 percent chance to get to the Final Four. That’s No. 11 seed Xavier, which is 12-to-1 to make the Final Four. But the Musketeers did see a requisite drop in their future odds, which went from 500-to-1 to 100-to-1 at the Superbook after their pair of victories.

• Xavier has been the best team to bet on, too. Six of the other Sweet 16 teams are 2-0 against the spread in the tournament — Wisconsin, Florida, South Carolina, Kansas, Purdue and Butler — but none has done it with the ease of the Musketeers, which covered by a combined 45 points. They made a big offensive leap, shooting 52.8 percent from the field against Maryland and Florida State, or 7.5 percentage points better than they managed the rest of the season.

• They haven’t made the biggest offensive improvement, though. That distinction is reserved for the Gamecocks, which are the only team still alive to score less than 1 point per possession during the regular season. They’ve shot all the way up to 1.24 points per possession in their first two tournament games, which is the seventh best of any team remaining. SEC Player of the Year Sindarius Thornwell, a senior, is the tournament’s leading remaining scorer as he’s accounted for 53 points.

• The two most inefficient offensive teams so far are unsurprisingly the two teams that sit at 0-2 against the spread. The surprising part is their identities — Gonzaga and Kentucky, both of which spent virtually the entire season in the nation’s top 20 in offensive efficiency. But, in the tournament, Gonzaga and Kentucky have only scored 1.03 and 1.06 points per possession, respectively. Gonzaga posted a 41.8 field goal percentage — down from 51.8 the rest of the season. Both of Kentucky’s leading scorers, freshmen Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox, are mired in mini-slumps after combining to go 19-for-49 from the field.

• UCLA, just as it did for most of the season, played the best offensively with 1.32 points per possession in wins over Kent State and Cincinnati. In the betting market, there could be some recency bias on the Bruins’ side going into a game against Kentucky. The Bruins have taken three-quarters of the action so far, pushing a spread that opened as far as Kentucky minus-1 to UCLA minus-1.

• Don’t rule out more line movement before the two bluebloods battle in Memphis. Given not only the two programs’ status, but their Friday night primetime slot, UCLA vs. Kentucky will probably be the most bet-on game of the Sweet 16. It’s also the round’s only rematch. UCLA handed Kentucky its first loss this season, winning 97-92 as 11-point underdogs in December at Rupp Arena.

• The Pac-12 has been the best conference to bet on in the tournament through the first weekend. The four Pac-12 teams have combined to go 6-2-1 against the spread. The conference has already beaten its over/under of 6.5 wins set before March Madness began.

• The ACC, on the other hand, has performed as badly as advertised — probably even worse. The conference has gone 2-13 against the spread. North Carolina would need each of its wins up to and including the national championship game to count for two victories just to match the conference’s over/under tournament win total of 15 games.

• For the first time in at least a decade, there’s not a single Sweet 16 point spread of more than 8 points. The average is minus-4, which is the second-lowest of the last 10 years behind 2014. Enjoy what should be a great set of games.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.

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