How do you feel about 16 game all day slates in the tournament? I actually do not mind them even though we have one and done teams with underpriced guys usually and a full day’s sweat, but really this is a good opportunity to do tilt slates as well and who doesn’t love those?
Illinois vs Arkansas
The Illini fall into the Big 10 category of frauds obviously for me, but them, Northwestern and Penn State are three teams that I can see putting out some entertaining first round games for DFS. Illinois was 71st in tempo and Arkansas was 54th but really shows flashes to play as a top 10 tempo still.
Illinois can win because Shannon and Mayer are experienced enough to take over. Arkansas SHOULD win because they are better and have Nick Smith/Anthony Black
- Illinois: Terrance Shannon, Matthew Mayer
- Arkansas: Nick Smith, Anthony Black
Utah State vs Missouri
Two teams I really enjoyed watching this year and what should be a really good #10 vs #7 match-up. Steven Ashworth needs to step up if Utah State is going to win like I hope/think that they will. He’s a must own in any exposure on this game. The 6’1 PG is likely to carve up Missouri’s weakness on defense even though he spell’s his first name wrong…
UTAH STATE:
- Steven Ashworth
- Taylor Funk … I considered writing up Trevin Dorius who is sub 5k and can hit the boards, but I don’t trust the minutes. Funk on the other hand will surely play a good amount and Missouri can fall asleep on rebounds at times.
Missouri: Kobe Brown
Oral Roberts vs Duke
I have an old saying (because I am old) as a coach that last week’s hot shooting is not this week’s hot shooting and that is applicable for Duke who was on fire at the ACC Tournament, but really they have been on fire for quite some time now. Duke’s going to get to the foul line plenty here to push this one over and allow for a full game stack to pay off. Duke wins by 12 and the game goes over because Oral Roberts is not going to be tournament shy.
- Duke: Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, Kyle Filipowski
- Oral Roberts: Max Abmas
Other Game / Team Thoughts
Howard vs Kansas – The logic here is hey Kansas probably could put up 90 so someone has to go off, right? I generally try to still avoid these games in the tournament but certainly get the lure of jumping on this one.
Texas A&M CC vs Alabama – I think A&M CC winning a close low scoring game on Tuesday helps them vs Alabama early. Bama then goes on a run around the 12 minute mark and this one is over at the half.
Arizona/Houston/UCLA/Tennessee … No thanks on stacks
Key Three
Steven Ashworth – Utah State – 7500
Jeremy Roach – Duke – 6500
Shy Odom – Howard – 4300
Additional Guards
- Wendell Green – Auburn – 7500 … I think the Auburn/Iowa game is not going to get there like the DFS community likely expects, but it can’t go off without Green having a good game
- Seth Lundy – Penn State – 7300 … This game is really fascinating to me. A&M will slow it down and keep things at their pace but is the worst team vs the 3PT on today’s slate while Penn State shoots a ton from 3.
- Courtney Ramey – Arizona – 6400
- Josiah Jordan James – Tennessee – 6100
Additional Forwards
- Kobe Brown (G/F) – Missouri – 8500
- Kyle Filipowski – Duke – 9000
- Matthew Mayer – Illinois – 7700
- Tre Mitchell – WVU – 6700
- Donta Scott – UMD – 6200
VALUE OPTIONS
Honestly the first thing to do today is lock in on your 2+ value plays. There are options, but not sure we have that usual mid-major smash guy.
- Shy Odom – Howard – 4700
- Andrew Funk – Penn State – 4900
- LaMont Butler – SDSU – 4600
- Tyrese Hunter – Texas – 4700
- Marcus Dockery – Howard – 3600
TOP BETS
Once again I will be doing the Big 67 as we pick all 67 games of the NCAA tournament. It will be logged like last year when we had a great run in the NCAA tournament with betting picks.
View Tournament Pick Tracker Here
Here are my top four bets for today
- Arkansas ML + Auburn ML Parlay
- Duke -5.5
- Princeton/Arizona under 154.5
- ULL +11.5