By now, even this dude’s bracket is now in the trash bin. Warren Buffet’s billion is still safely sitting inside a massive vault, waiting for something that may never happen.
Nevertheless, the favorite for the NCAA championship remains alive and kicking, as the Florida Gators heading to the Sweet 16 having yet to be seriously challenged. However, as of this writing, the defending champions the Louisville Cardinals have be installed as co-favorites after Wichita State was eliminated from their Midwest region.
Without further adieu, let’s get into our look at the odds to win the 2014 March Madness.
[sc:MarchMadness ]Odds to Win NCAA Tournament
Overall Favorite: Florida Gators
The longer the NCAA Tournament goes, the lower the odds have gone on the No. 1 Florida Gators to cut down the nets. While the same is true with the other teams that have survived two rounds of the tourney, the Gators are different in the sense that they were the odds-on faves even before the tournament began and haven’t ceded their top pricing since.
[sc:finalfour240 ]The Gators looked every bit the overall no. 1 in the third round by hurling the Pittsburgh Panthers out of the window with a dominating 61-45 victory in the Round of 32.
From a price of +550 in March 1, the Gators are now pegged +350 to notch the school’s third national title in eight years.
Catching Up: Louisville Cardinals
Rick Pitino was visibly relieved after the no. 4 Louisville Cardinals turned back the no. 13 Manhattan Jaspers in the first round, 71-64. Then, after smothering the St. Louis Billikens with their defense in the third round, oddsmakers quickly installed Louisville as the co-top faves, along with Florida, to win the tournament at +350.
The Cardinals have a very tough road to the Final Four ahead of them, as they prepare to face a talented, motivated Kentucky Wildcats team in the Sweet 16, to whom the Cards lost in the regular season, 73-66.
Best Value: Kentucky Wildcats
Here come the No. 8 Kentucky Wildcats. With the way things have turned out in the Wildcats’ first two games, it now seems silly that the Wildcats were given the same seed as Colorado, Memphis, and Gonzaga – three teams that have bombed out of the tourney already.
The Wildcats beat the spread in each of their first two games of the tournament, including their game against the previously-unbeaten No. 1 seed Wichita State Shockers in what was the tournament’s best game.
In other words, that means they’ve surpassed the expectations of linesmakers, who partly based their initial pricing on the Wildcats’ largely inconsistent regular season showing. But in this tournament, Kentucky looks consistently and scarily good.
After being +5,000 longshots at the beginning of the month, they are now priced +1,500 to be the last team standing in the tournament, a price that is moving by the day as bettors hit it hard. The Wildcats are also installed as +400 to be the Midwest region’s representative in the Final Four.
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