One of the biggest sports betting events of the year is about to get underway, as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament starts on Thursday with the First Four games, followed by the round of 64 games, which start on Friday. The tournament will all take place in Indiana as an effort to keep the tournament from spreading COVID-19, and there are already issues emerging, as six officials have been sent home from Indianapolis after testing positive. Let’s take a look at the latest rumors from college hoops ahead of the sport’s signature tournament.
NCAA News: Rumors Ahead of the Big Dance
Gonzaga is the heavy favorite to win; sportsbooks are exposed by Michigan
Gonzaga enters the tournament as the nation’s lone unbeaten team, with odds hovering around +200 for the Bulldogs to win. Baylor (+500), Illinois (+600) and Michigan (+600) are the next three favorites. This is the first time that Gonzaga has completed a regular season without a loss. They had some impressive wins in non-conference play, taking down the likes of Iowa and Virginia, and they did beat BYU three times. However, sports bettors should remain concerned that two months of mostly soft competition in the West Coast Conference may have blunted Gonzaga’s play. They took it on the chin from BYU in the first half of the WCC tournament final, for example, before coming back to win.
But what about Michigan? Back in December, the odds for the Wolverines to win the national championship were as long as +12500, but then Michigan started 11-0, and those odds came down. Even so, many of the books have a lot of Michigan action that dated back then, and heavy action came in during February and early March as well. So the sportsbooks are likely to be rooting against the Wolverines.
Fun facts ahead of the tournament
Duke and Kentucky both missed the NCAA tournament. That has not happened since 1976.
As we mentioned before, Gonzaga comes in with a perfect regular-season record. This is the fifth time a team has come in unbeaten since Indiana rolled to a 32-0 record in 1976, winning the national title. Three of the previous four teams since Indiana to come in unbeaten made it to the Final Four, but only one made the championship game, when Larry Bird led Indiana State to the finals against Michigan State, where he faced off with Magic Johnson for the first time. Gonzaga is the #1 overall seed, but it has been six years since the top seed made the Final Four and eight years since it won the title.
The Big Ten has two 1-seeds (Illinois and Michigan) and two 2-seeds (Iowa and Ohio State). No other conference has ever gotten four seeds in the top two in one tournament. There were seven previous times when a conference received three top-two seeds since 1979. The ACC had it happen four times, the Big East had it happen twice and the Big 12 had it happen once. Virginia (2019) and North Carolina (2005 and 2017) are the only teams to come out of conferences with that many top seeds to win titles.
Iowa’s McCaffery extended through 2028
Iowa Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery inked a four-year contract extension after guiding the nation’s eighth-ranked team to the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament and the highest NCAA tournament seed they’ve seen since 1987. They are a 2-seed and open against Grand Canyon University on Friday. McCaffery will keep the same base salary for the next two seasons, but he will get a pair of longevity bonuses and raises in the last five years of the deal. In eight of the 11 seasons McCaffery has coached the Hawkeyes, they have finished in the top half of the Big Ten, and the team has seven 20-win seasons. This is the fifth time since 2014 that Iowa has made the NCAA tournament. McCaffery has 215 overall victories and 103 conference wins, sitting at #2 on the list of career wins for Iowa coaches.
College Basketball Betting Odds
Love betting NCAA basketball? | Xbet Sportsbook offers up to date college basketball lines
