College Basketball Picks and March Madness Best Bets

Texas Christian enters the NCAA playing its best basketball of the season, with its only loss in the past month to Kansas in the Big 12 tournament (6-1 ATS). The Horned Frogs can poke a soft spot for OSU, which coughs the ball up too much. TCU is terrific at flipping those mistakes into buckets, forcing almost 14 turnovers for 16 POTOV per game. 

Defensively, UL matches up well against South Florida. The Bulls thrive on causing chaos, picking up points off turnovers and crashing the glass for offensive putbacks. The Cardinals love to run and are one of the better rebounding teams in the country and don’t allow many second-chance buckets. The Bulls sell out to stop interior scoring but can get torched by outside shooting. When UL has all its weapons, the Cardinals knock down the fifth most triples in the country and shoot almost 36% from deep.

Wisconsin fires up the third most 3-pointers in the country and hits its share too, pushing its average points north of 80. High Point is also trigger happy from distance, knocking down nine triples and scoring 86.5 points per game – 10th most in the land. The Panthers also like to push the pace, sitting Top 50 in tempo, which is just fine for the Badgers’ backcourt duo of John Blackwell and Nick Boyd. They combined for 51 points per game over three Big Ten tournament contests.

The Tar Heels aren’t a great 3-point shooting team, and they leave far too many points at the foul line. I question UNC’s motivations in March. VCU, however, has been fighting for its life for the past two months after sitting on the bubble until the A-10 tournament win. Virginia Commonwealth attacks on every level: drawing fouls, crashing the glass, and playing tight defense. The Rams won’t be intimidated by UNC’s pedigree either, having played a tough non-conference slate.

Saint Louis has a few edges over UGA, starting with the fact they actually play defense. The Billikens also run deep, able to keep fresh capable scorers on the floor. And most importantly, SLU can light it up from long range. Georgia’s 3-point shooting runs hot and cold while Saint Louis shoots better than 40% from beyond the arc and averages over 10 triples an outing. Game models have this as one of the closest contests of the Round of 64 with forecasts between one and two points for UGA. 

Hofstra checks a lot of boxes when it comes to mid-majors giving power conference foes fits. The Pride rebound well, defend the rim, shoot the 3-ball, and have game-breaking scorer in Cruz Davis (20.2 PPG). Alabama's defense is still soft and will struggle to keep Hofstra from the offensive glass. Game models vary, with one calling for a 14-point margin but others down to 11 and even 7 points.