Your March Madness survivor pool has too many entries still alive, doesn’t it? Obviously, anything more than your entries is too many entries alive, but this chalk-heavy NCAA Tournament has survivors abound.
Even Tennessee beating Iowa State on Friday night did only so much good.
I am in three different survivor leagues. The most enticing of them still has 12.2% of entries alive. The other two are just north of 13%.
It is time to not only hope for chaos to thin the herd, but it is also time to bet on chaos. One of your March Madness picks should be a chalk thought. The other should be your contrarian hope.
Let’s start with the chalk on the left side of the bracket…
Best Elite Eight March Madness survivor picks
Illinois Fighting Illini
Michigan WolverinesOdds from bet365, one of our best betting apps. Sign up with our bet365 promo code, or get one of our other sportsbook promos.
Saturday: Illinois
In the Elite Eight, your survivor pool should not require you to pick one team per day; it should require you to pick two teams to win in the round. That prevents certain title matchups being ruled out simply because of the pairing of Elite Eight games to days.
What you really need to think about is picking one team on the left side of the bracket and one team on the right side of the bracket. And as you pick them, you need to think about who you actually expect to advance to the national championship game.
If anything became clear Friday night, it's that Duke will be playing on the first Monday in April. Sure, you could take the Blue Devils this weekend to best assure yourself survival into April, but survivor pools have grown too much in recent years to hope simply surviving in March will be enough to win some money. You must now predict April correctly, as well.
Duke’s newfound and improving health should shatter any thoughts of the Blue Devils not reaching the national championship game. Tough luck, UConn, Illinois, and Iowa.
If granting the premise that Duke will win in the Final Four, then you simply must decide who the Blue Devils will beat.
The Illinois Fighting Illini are favored by seven on Saturday evening, and with the Illini defense improving of late, Iowa’s hopes of grinding this game into the 50s could backfire and keep the Hawkeyes from even reaching 50 points.
The Illini have improved since they won at Iowa in January, while the Hawkeyes have actually slipped a bit in efficiency ratings.
The chalk play both this weekend and next is to take Illinois to push your survivor entry halfway to the Final Four.
Sunday: Michigan
The faith in Duke making the national championship game means your contrarian choice needs to come on the right side of the bracket. It is up to you if you make that bold move official now or next weekend.
Yours truly will be staking his largest survivor bid on going bold now by taking the No. 1 team in the country per KenPom. Yes, that is the contrarian choice.
Taking the Michigan Wolverines now means I will need Purdue (or for some of you, perhaps Arizona) to reach the national championship game. This is my chosen risk through wanted chaos.
Why would I ever stake these hopes on the Boilermakers upsetting the Wildcats? Because this is the exact matchup Arizona should fear, as laid out in this preview of Saturday’s games.
Also because I set up this tactic by taking the Wildcats in the Sweet Sixteen.
Then why take Michigan now rather than Purdue? Because the Wolverines are quite vulnerable when they are not hitting their 3-pointers, and pinning national title hopes on such a liability is a risk Dusty May should come to regret. Taking Michigan now means I will then be able to trust the Boilermakers to upset the Wolverines next weekend for the second time this postseason.
Look at that loss in the Big Ten Tournament. Michigan shot 7-for-24 from deep while taking 37.5% of its shots from beyond the arc. That latter rate was below both Purdue’s usual defensive standard and Michigan’s usual offensive choices. Yet, that bad shooting (29.2%) was still problematic enough to cost the Wolverines.
They went 1-5 against the spread vs. NCAA Tournament teams this season when shooting worse than 30% from deep. That is not that much of a deviation from Michigan’s season-long average of 36.9% from deep. Yet that slight downtick costs the Wolverines.
They should be able to survive as three-bucket favorites against Tennessee — though if really wanting to go contrarian, there is your recipe for chaos the likes of which usually only a Wildcat can serve to a Michigan Man — but this core deficiency should show itself eventually, hence taking Michigan to win one more and only one more game in this NCAA Tournament.
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