As you prepare your bracket for the full slate of March Madness action, which starts in full on Thursday, you’ll want every edge you can get. If it’s expert opinions you’re after, no problem. But if you want a bit more depth on why certain top seeds will be vulnerable when the going gets tough, you’ve come to the right place.
Let the giant-killings and bracket-bustings begin. Come Selection Sunday, lower-seeded teams should definitely fancy their chances of making some major headlines should they be paired up with these highly-seeded teams, who look ready to be knocked out of the tournament much earlier than expected.
[sc:MarchMadness ]Top March Madness Upset Candidates
1. Syracuse Orange
[sc:NCAAB240banner ]In the span of a month, Syracuse has gone from national championship favorites to potential first-round fodder. The Orange were priced at +1,200 to win the national championship at the beginning of March, a bet that doesn’t look so good now that they are +1,500. Syracuse went 2-5 SU in its final seven games of the season, including a 66-63 defeat to North Carolina State in its first ever ACC conference tournament game.
Normally so adept at pulling out close wins, Jim Boeheim’s team has lost four of those five games by six points or less. Should Syracuse find itself in another close game early in the tournament, the end-of-game jitters that have tortured them recently could come back to haunt them.
2. Kansas Jayhawks
The health of Joel Embiid is the obvious X-factor that can transform Kansas from a possible upset target into a legitimate national championship contender. Nonetheless, they are +700 to win the national championship even after the true extent of Embiid’s injury was revealed.
The problem is they haven’t been able to click all at the same time. Kansas is 2-2 SU in four games without Embiid, and in two of those games, Andrew Wiggins exploded for 41 points and Perry Ellis went 11-12 for 30 points. The Jayhawks still lost both games. Kansas certainly has great players, but the whole is definitely not greater the sum of its parts.
3. Wisconsin Badgers
Wisconsin is a No. 2 seed thanks to another very good regular season and is a sneaky +1,800 bet to win it all. Unfortunately, this is around the time of the year when the fun normally ends for the Badgers. Bo Ryan’s squads have famously flopped in the tournament, with seven first or second round exits in 12 years.
This may just be the year Ryan learns from past mistakes and finally takes the Badgers to the Final Four, but an unsuccessful decade’s worth of evidence suggests otherwise.
Grab Top Bet’s 2014 March Madness bracket just in time for Selection Sunday, and bet all tournament long with Top Bet’s college basketball lines.
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