The Big East conference that came together for basketball years ago hit a huge milestone Sunday, when three of its teams earned top seeds in the NCAA tournament. Louisville, Pittsburgh and Connecticut were all No. 1, joined by North Carolina of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Big East is the league that gave us Patrick Ewing and John Thompson, one of the game’s biggest upsets (Villanova over Georgetown in 1985) and one of its greatest games (Syracuse over UConn in six overtimes just last week).
The conference also broke new ground in 1985, when it became the first to place three teams in the Final Four.
“It speaks volumes for what it means to win the Big East,” said Louisville coach Rick Pitino, whose Cardinals are the tournament’s overall top seed and will play in the Midwest.
The Cardinals (28-5), winners of the regular-season and conference championships in the nation’s top-ranked conference, will open against the winner of an opening-round game Tuesday between Alabama State and Morehead State.
The rest of the tournament starts Thursday and Friday.
NCAA Men’s Basketball picks are a popular form of sports betting online. If you know the odds and study the game and lines, you can come out ahead.
During March Madness, its about trying to guess the final team out of 64. Even though that seems like an impossible challenge, it’s very possible. NCAA Men’s basketball predictions that people usually pick for march madness is to NOT go with the number one team overall. It is very rare that the number 1 team overall takes it in March Madness. It is the most exciting thing to watch and there are usually so many upsets.
Odds of predicting all 64 teams correctly are 1 in over 5 million. This means you are guaranteed to get some picks wrong, you just don’t want to get them wrong in the later rounds.
The NCAA tournament is actually pretty random. Who could have guessed last year that George Mason University - a No. 11 seed - would make the Final Four? Well, 1,853 out of more than 1.5 million people who entered ESPN.com’s Tournament Challenge. This is why college basketball favorites are not your best picks during March Madness.
Here’s some good betting advice for betting on March Madness: don’t pick the higher seeds to win all the games. Even most casual college basketball fans know better than to pick all the No. 1 seeds to make it to the Final Four. Even picking 3 number 1 team’s can be a major risk. The last time 3 number one teams made it to the final four was 2001. Try to go with two No. one seeds and then some combination of twos, threes and fours for the last two spots. With some studying of the brackets and knowing the history of the brackets will put you on the right track. No one will correctly guess all 64 teams, if you do there are many sites that will offer you over a million dollars if you do, that’s how unlikely it is.
1. Louisville Cardinals, 12-8 against the spread: Louisville covered seven straight games, including tough ones against Pittsburgh and Syracuse, before failing to cover against the West Virginia Mountaineers in their last.
2. Xavier Musketeers, 12-7 against the spread: They are five games above .500 against the betting spread and have reeled off eight straight victories. This is the best team in the Atlantic-10 and they should keep winning against the spread.
3. Duke Blue Devils, 11-8-1 against the spread: Their record against the spread is still a winning one, but they have to start beating teams like Wake Forest straight-up on the road.
4. Oklahoma Sooners, 10-6-1 against the spread: The class of the Big-12 continues to impress with victories straight-up and against the spread versus Baylor and Oklahoma State.
5. Butler Bulldogs, 12-5-1 against the spread: They have one of the best against the spread records in college basketball and I could rank them much higher in this but they play a soft schedule and I have the feeling that the NCAA odds makers are onto these guys.
6. Washington Huskies, 12-7 against the spread: The Huskies are easily the best team against the spread in the Pac-10, but their on the road against the California Golden Bears in their next game.
7. Stanford Cardinal, 13-5 against the spread: What a great against the spread record! 13 and 5 after their embarrassing loss to the UCLA Bruins. They will have to bounce back and might not with tough games coming up against Washington, Washington State and California.
8. San Diego State Aztecs, 10-5-1 against the spread: They’re 15 and 5 straight-up and have gone 7 and 2 against the spread in their last 9 games.
Lou Holtz, Billy Cannon and Troy Aikman were among 15 former players and coaches elected Thursday to the College Football Hall of Fame.
As coach, Holtz led six schools to 249 victories in a 35 year career. He won a national title with Notre Dame in 1988. Cannon played tailback and defensive back for LSU from 1957-59, winning the Heisman Trophy his senior year.
The other 11 players chosen by the NFF’s selection committee included Virginia offensive tackle Jim Dombrowski; Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald; Florida linebacker Wilber Marshall; Washington State running back Ruben Mayes; Arizona State guard Randall McDaniel; Syracuse quarterback Don McPherson; Wyoming tight end Jay Novacek; Texas Tech split end Dave Parks; Florida State nose guard Ron Simmons; Oklahoma State running back Thurman Thomas, and Army quarterback Arnold Tucker.
The Naismith Trophy is given every year to the men’s and women’s college players of the year and is the most prestigious national award one can receive in college basketball. Hansbrough beat out fellow junior Chris Douglas-Roberts (Memphis), and freshmen Michael Beasley (Kansas State), and Kevin Love (UCLA) to become the 16th recipient from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to win the award, more than any other conference.
For the season, Hansbrough, who hails from Poplar Bluff, Mo.,averaged 22.8 points and 10.2 rebounds in being named the ACC Player of the Year, and led the Tar Heels to both the ACC regular-season and tournament championships this season. The 6-9 junior from joins Michael Jordan (1984) and Antawn Jamison (1998) as the third Tar Heel to win the Naismith Trophy and will become only the sixth player in school history to have his jersey retired. He’s a three-time, first-team All-America selection and an eight-time ACC player of the week choice.
