Sports Betting Blog

The bottom left of your bracket has Syracuse as the number one seed. And they deserved their spot. The Orange had an amazing regular season. They are currently 28-4 SU for the season and as if that was not enough, has had an 11-2 mark on the road, including the latest games in the Big East Tourney. In terms of wagering, Syracuse is one of the best teams this season when it comes to covering the spread.

Before the first round of the NCAA Tournament begins, the Syracuse Orange is 19-9 ATS. So they have covered their spread in 67.9% of their games. That’s 25% better then Kansas and almost 12% improvement over Kentucky’s ATS performance.

But Syracuse is not as strong as one would like before the First Round. They have lost their two previous games against Louisville and Georgetown by at least 7 points. Sure they had already won the Big East Conference title outright, but things didn’t go well in the conference tourney. Add the recent injury of power-forward Arinze Onaku’s quadriceps and suddenly the team seams to be hurting in both defense and offense.

Two years ago, the Vermont Catamounts stun them and send the Orange back home before in the first round in 2005. The team is not going to miss Onaku too much in their first game against the Catamounts, they are a -17.5 point favorite here. But they must be wishing for a quick healing in Onaku’s quads, because they probably won’t make it pass the Elite Eight or the Final Four if the 6-foot-9 forward is not battling over the paint. They are sure going to need him if they make it down the NCAA Tournament Bracket and into the Elite Eight and meet Kansas State, which is a formidable team in the interior.

Watch out for UTEP and Butler. These two powerful teams are sure enough going to make up for one exciting game. The Bulldogs go into the opening round with a 20 game win streak. UTEP on the other hand has two very big players in the front, at 6-9 and 6-11 respectively, both Derrick Caracter and Arnet Moultrie are the kind of players that could get Butler’s star player, Matt Howard, into trouble. As of press time, Butler is a -2½ point favorite. But chances are that UTEP could very well take this game and make it into the second round, probably against (-3 point favorite over Murray State) Vanderbilt, a strong team that really needs to improve its performance on defense.

While you are at it, keep an eye out for BYU’s Jimmer Fredette. He has averaged 37.5 points per game in his last to appearances with the team. He has a 44.8% in the 3-point range and is quite a safe choice on free throws. Look around for Props and Matchups for this and other players in the NCAA Tournament at BetIAS.com

If we look at the odds, and take some chances, it is quite possible that both Syracuse and Kansas State are going to meet again in the Elite Eight Round. And if this happens, then the orange are really going to need Onaku at his best. And it’s not quite certain the nature of the injury or if he is going to be back in the field anytime soon. The Wildcats, on the other hand, have been extremely good picking up balls from the boards. They’ve grabbed 40.6% of available rebounds this season.