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The Sweet 16 is here, with 4 games scheduled to take place Thursday night and the remaining 4 tipping off on Friday. Each No. 1 seed is still alive, but this is typically the time when 1-seeds start dropping. Each of the top 4 overall seeds haven’t made it to the Elite Eight in the same NCAA Tournament since 2016. And while this year’s Big Dance has been noticeably lacking in terms of madness, chalk early doesn’t guarantee chalk late.
Ahead of the regional semifinals, here are 3 futures worth betting on.
Houston to win the national championship (+525 via ESPN Bet)
According to Bart Torvik’s tourney calculations, Houston has the best chance of winning the national championship. Torvik’s model gives the Cougars a 26.2% chance to cut down the nets, which far exceeds the implied probability of ESPN Bet‘s price at the moment. KenPom also currently rates Houston as the second-best team in basketball. Even more, the Cougars meet that all-important criteria for champions — they have a top-10 offense and defense in KenPom. Three of the last 5 national champions and 12 of the last 22 have been top 10 on both sides of the floor.
(Extend the cutoff to top-20 on both sides of the floor and you include 20 of the last 22 champions. Houston currently has the No. 1 adjusted defensive rating in the country and the No. 10 adjusted offensive rating according to KenPom.)
The Cougars have some clear matchup advantages over their regional semifinal opponent, Purdue. The line at ESPN Bet at the time of publication was Houston -8.5. With the Cougars, Sampson is 7-0 straight up in NCAA Tournament games when his team is favored by 8.5 points or more.
Houston could face a Tennessee team in the Elite Eight that is a slightly inferior facsimile. I’d take the Cougs in that game as well. As a favorite of any kind in the NCAA Tournament, Houston is 15-3 SU under Sampson. The Cougs would likely be an underdog to Duke, the title favorite, in a potential Final Four matchup. But that’s assuming the Blue Devils make it out of the East.
Among the 1-seeds, Houston has shown the most. It handled its first-round opponent in boring fashion. Then it beat the best second-round team any of the top seeds faced. Gonzaga was wildly undervalued as an 8-seed; even after the second-round loss, the Zags are rated by KenPom as the ninth-best team in America.
The Cougs have an elite defense to fuel a title run, and this year they have an offense to match.
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Texas Tech to win the national championship (+2000 via ESPN Bet)
I’m circling back and hedging on my title pick by also backing Texas Tech. Outside of the 1-seeds, Tech has looked like the best team in the field through the opening 2 rounds. The Red Raiders are eighth in KenPom (though they don’t meet that previously-mentioned title contender criteria) and are viewed as the best title threat to the 1s in Bart Torvik’s forecasting.
Torvik’s model gives Tech a 14.8% chance to reach the title game. That’s the highest of any non-1-seed in the field.
In the first round, Texas Tech took 46 triples and beat UNC Wilmington by 10. In the second round, Tech played a completely different game against the glacial Drake Bulldogs and won by 13. Tech took only 14 triples, instead leaning on their talented bigs inside. JT Toppin had 25 points and 12 boards. Darrion Williams had 28 points, 6 boards, and 5 assists. The duo combined to shoot 22 for 31 from the field.
Toppin is one of the best players in the tournament. But Tech has another standout who hasn’t stepped foot on the court yet. Chance McMillian, the team’s third-leading scorer and its best 3-point shooter hasn’t played since suffering an injury against Baylor on March 13. He seems close to a return, and if he can provide a boost, Tech is a dangerous threat to come out of the West.
Michigan State to make the Final Four (+250 via BetMGM)
After 2 rounds, Auburn looks like the most vulnerable 1-seed in the field. A hip injury to Chad Baker-Mazara in the second-round win over Creighton is a potentially big deal. Baker-Mazara practiced Thursday afternoon and head coach Bruce Pearl told reporters he is expected to play on Friday, according to Auburn Undercover, but it won’t be enough for the heart and soul of the team to just be out there. The 6-foot-7 wing is a major swing piece in Auburn’s pursuit of a national title. He can be explosive, and thus transform Auburn into a monster to deal with. He can also be detrimental on his worst days.
On a separate note, Auburn did not play well in the first-round win over Alabama State. And POTY candidate Johni Broome was a non-factor offensively in the second round. Auburn limped into the NCAA Tournament and now has to deal with Michigan’s duo of 7-footers who can initiate offense all on their own. Should the Tigers get past the Wolverines, they’ll have to beat a punishing Michigan State team to make the Final Four. And beating Tom Izzo in the Elite Eight has been close to impossible over the years. At Michigan State, Izzo is 8-2 SU in Elite Eight games. One of the 2 losses came to an eventual national champion.
This year’s MSU team is peaking at the perfect time. The Spartans have won 10 of their last 11, with the only loss coming by 3 points. They have a top-5 defense, the best 3-point defense in the country, elite rebounding, and a go-to guard who can make impactful plays even when his shot isn’t falling. Whether it faces Auburn or Michigan, a team it won both regular-season games against by double-digits, I’m taking Michigan State to come out of the South.
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Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
