Race to Final-Four Begins in Earnest This Week with Conference Tournaments

1. NCAA Men's Final Four - National Championship Game Blakeway Worldwide Panoramas/Getty Images Sitting less than 24 hours away from the official start of the 2019-20 men's college basketball season, here's a look at the top 68 teams' odds to make the Final Four of the 2020 March Madness Tournament in Atlanta ahead of this Tuesday's tipoff.
2. Here are the odds to win the 2015 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player award at Bovada; check back later for an updated list of Final Four prop bets. Karl Anthony Towns (Kentucky) 3/1 Willie Cauley-Stein (Kentucky) 4/1 Jahlil Okafor (Duke) 5/1 Justise Winslow (Duke) 5/1 Aaron Harrison (Kentucky) 7/1 Frank Kaminsky (Wisconsin) 8/1.

Conference Tournament Odds. Sweet 16 Predictions. Final Four Predictions. 2021 Brackets Resources. NCAA FB Vegas Odds NCAA FB Global Odds NCAA FB Matchups. While Arizona is one of the favorites to reach the Final Four, No.2 Kansas (45/1) hasn’t been given very good odds of winning the title, ranking behind No.3 Notre Dame (25/1) in the Midwest.

This is a basketball season like none other in living memory for most of us. Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and most of NCAA royalty are second tier, or may miss the tournament altogether without a huge conference weekend.

In their place Gonzaga +240 is undefeated and finally looking to get the Championship monkey off their back after finishing as runner’s up the last time the tournament was held. If they can do it without a loss, they’d be the first in over 40 years to pull off the feat.

After Tuesday’s Conference clinching comeback win over BYU they’ve won an astounding 23 straight games by double digits to go along with a series of early season wins over highly ranked teams and one of the best offenses in the country. They remain the team to beat.

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Here are the Odds for the Top Favorites:

Odds To Win 2021 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
Gonzaga +240
Baylor +300
Michigan +350
Illinois +800
Iowa +1400
Alabama +1600
Ohio State +1600
Florida State +1600
Houston +2200
West Virginia +2200
Texas +2500
Kansas +2500
Connecticut +2500
Villanova +3000
Creighton +3000
Virginia +3000
Arkansas +3500
Texas Tech +3500
Oregon +5000
Oklahoma +5000
Wisconsin +5500
Tennessee +5500
Loyola Chicago +5500
San Diego State +6000
Colorado +6000
North Carolina +6600
Purdue +6600
USC +6600
Louisville +7500
LSU +7500
Virginia Tech +8000
Kentucky +8000

Baylor Bears saw Covid shut down their season for most of February, and then suffered their only loss of the season -to Kansas- shortly thereafter. But they’ve bounced back in a big way with three straight wins over ranked teams in the Big-12.

National Championship Pick: As it stands these two are still the teams to beat, and I like Baylor +300 to win it all because of the higher level of play in their conference and the Covid influenced break may turn out to be a blessing in disguise as we grind towards the finish line.

This week all eyes will be on the Big-10 tournament with no fewer than four teams all but certain to lock up either one or two seeds heading into the tournament.

Michigan +165 is the favorite this weekend due in part to their huge win over Ohio State a couple of weeks ago that might have been the best game in the entire NCAA season up till now.

But they’ve lost two of their last three, including a blowout loss to #4 Illinois. The Illinois Fighting Illini have not been this highly ranked for a long time, but they leapfrogged Michigan and are now the third ranked team in the nation. They’ve won four in a row, three straight over ranked teams including their most recent win over #7 Ohio State and 11 of 12. They have longer odds as well at +333 even though they appear to be peaking.

Big Ten Pick: Iowa +400, Purdue +475, and especially Ohio State +650 all have something to play for this week as well, but give me Illinois to win the conference and continue their scorching play of late.

Kentucky +700 is just 9-15 this season and 1-5 against ranked teams, leaving the SEC wide open. Alabama +230 has emerged as the unlikely favorite, but they’ve been proving they belong all season long with a 17-3 record in their last 20.Still, they are just 1-3 against ranked teams this year.

Arkansas +290 is the hottest team in the SEC and that includes an 81-66 win over Alabama two weeks ago. They’ve won eight in a row and are 2-2 against ranked teams overall, but the two wins have come in the last month.

Look to Ole Miss +2200 as a great underdog pick with three wins over ranked teams in February and in need of a few more quality victories to guarantee their spot in the tournament.
SEC Pick: Ole Miss

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I have gone back in history and dug up the scores from previous Final Four & NCAA Championship games. The information you will find in the tables below stems back to 1985, which is when the NCAA Tournament was expanded to 64 teams.

I was only able to find the lines for all Final Four games dating back to 2003. I was able to find all of the lines for the NCAA Championship Game since 1985. I’ll make a couple of notes about what I have found that will hopefully help you handicap not only this year’s Final Four, but the Final Four in years to come.

Final Four Results & Vegas Point Spreads

NCAA Championship Game Odds & Score Results

There haven’t been many upsets in the Final Four in recent years. In fact, the favorite has won 14 of the last 18 meetings since 2010. However, the underdog has been a very good bet in recent seasons. UConn pulled off one of the biggest upsets in tournament history in 2014 year with a 63-53 win as 7-point underdogs to Florida, and in 2015 Wisconsin beat an undefeated Kentucky team.

Vegas Odds Ncaa Tournament Final Four Results

Oddsmakers have expected close games in the Final Four. That’s indicated by the fact that only six teams have been underdogs of 7 or more points since 2003.

Favorites in the NCAA Championship Game have been a good bet historically, however, the underdog has won against the spread in three of the last six years.

There have been some huge upsets in the history of the NCAA Championship Game. The biggest of them all was Connecticut beating Duke 77-74 as 9.5-point underdogs back in 1999. Kansas won as an 8-point underdog to Oklahoma 83-79 in 1988, while No. 8 Villanova defeated No. 1 Georgetown 66-64 as 8-point dogs in 1985. Arizona won as a 7-point underdog to Kentucky in overtime by a final of 84-79 in 1997 as the fourth-biggest upset in history.

Vegas Odds Ncaa Tournament Winner

There were a lot bigger point spreads dating back further in the Championship Game than there are now. From 1985 to 1999, there were four instances where one team was favored by at least 8 points, with the biggest being Kentucky (-14) over Syracuse in 1996. Since 2000, there hasn’t been one instance where a team was favored by more than 7.5 points. That just goes to show the parity in college basketball these days compared to before the turn of the century.