It is mid-February already, which means March Madness is just around the corner. So far this season, losing is still an alien concept to the Kentucky Wildcats, who’ve won 25-straight games as of this writing. College basketball, however, is about more than just the Wildcats.
With that said, let’s see which among the nation’s teams are the favorites, the sleepers, and the long shots to win it all as we enter the crunch time for college basketball’s heavy hitters. For more, check out our previews of key NCAA games this week like North Carolina vs. Duke and Kentucky vs. Tennessee.
[sc:MarchMadness ]2015 March Madness Odds Update
Favorites: Kentucky, Duke, Wisconsin
[sc:NCAAB240banner ]Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: the Kentucky Wildcats (-130) are the heavy favorites to win the NCAA National Tournament. It’s been three months since the Wildcats played their first game and up to now, they’re still undefeated.
Kentucky has a horde of first round NBA talents, the size, the experience, and the coaching pedigree of John Calipari that all make the Wildcats a very scary matchup for any team in the tournament. The Wildcats’ close win over the LSU Tigers may have exposed some of the chinks in their armor but those are nothing Kentucky can’t fix.
Speaking of talent and coaching pedigree, the Wildcats aren’t alone in the top tier. When it comes to those two qualities, Duke (+700) isn’t that far behind the Wildcats. Jahlil Okafor (18.4 PPG, 9.3 RPG) has repeatedly proven his hype, and he’s been the center of the Mike Krzyewski-coached Blue Devils’ offense that is better than what most teams in the nation have, including Kentucky. Duke is shooting close to 50 percent from the field and has a second-ranked KenPom rated offense (121.0 points per 100 possessions). Duke’s win over No. 2 Virginia and No. 10 Notre Dame suggest that the Blue Devils are rounding into form as March Madness looms.
Wisconsin’s (+600) roster, meanwhile, may not be talented as that of Kentucky and Duke, but it is a team that performs better than the sum of its parts. Make no mistake about it, Sam Dekker, Nigel Hayes, and Frank Kaminsky, are all potential NBA first and second rounders, but those three are complemented by a raft of role players, who all can flat out score. As a result, the Badgers have an offense that scores 125.5 points per 100 possessions (yes, it’s the best in the nation).
Sleepers: Iowa State, Texas, Wichita State
We’ll likely see more than half of the teams in the Big 12 to make the national tournament. Two of those teams are going to be the Iowa State Cyclones (+4,000) and the Texas Longhorns (+8,000). Both the Cyclones and the Longhorns are having it rough in Big 12 play, but that’s barely surprising in a conference with seven teams in the Top 30 RPI. Iowa State is powered by a top 10 offense according to KenPom, while Rick Barnes’ bunch is more of a defensive team with a Top 20 defensive KenPom rating.
If the Shockers (+4,000) were going to make a run all the way into the National Championship Game, they should’ve done it in any of the last two tournaments, the last one in particular, when they barged into March as an undefeated No. 1 seed and had Cleanthony Early in the fold. However, the current Shockers team still boasts of considerable talent with the junior pair of Ron Baker (15.6 PPG) and Fred VanVleet (12.0 PPG, 5.4 APG) and senior Tekele Cotton (9.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG) leading the pack. Those three are the core of Gregg Marshall’s team right now, and their experience from having appeared in all of the three previous tournaments should make Wichita State a team to watch out this March.
Long Shots: Harvard, Cincinnati
The Crimson (+50,000) aren’t new to the idea of being cinderellas, as they walked down this road just last year, when as a 12th seed, they reached the third round of the tournament by knocking off then-No. 5 Cincinnati in the second round. Today, Harvard is again on its way to making the tournament, although its chances of clinching a spot through auto-bid process is in peril as the Yale Bulldogs are giving the Crimson a stiff competition in the Ivy League.
As for the Bearcats (+30,000), back-to-back losses against Temple and Tulane have hurt their chances for a higher seed in the tournament. The loss to Tulane hurts Cincy more as the Green Wave are just a Top 147 RPI team. That said, Cincinnati is still going to take part in the Big Dance save for a disastrous stretch in its remaining schedule that features three teams outside of the RPI Top 140.
The Bearcats’ offense is still feeling the repercussions of last season’s top scorer Sean Kilpatrick’s graduation. The team is averaging fewer points than last season and has seen their adjusted offense regress, too. If the Bearcats are to wreck teams in the tournament, they will have to do it mainly by employing their choking defense that is currently seventh in the nation with only 55.2 points allowed per game.
Writer’s Prediction
In hindsight, Kentucky (-130) being No. 8 seed last season was plain ridiculous, although that’s also partly justified by the losses they’ve had. More experienced and perhaps more talented than last season, the ‘Cats are going to win it all this coming April.
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