Final Four hits the floor in Texas on Saturday

The NCAA Tournament is down to the Final Four and they call it March Madness for a reason. This year’s Big Dance had pretty much gone chalk through the first three rounds with the majority of the favorites on the Bovada futures to win it all advancing to last week’s Sweet 16. After all the smoke cleared late Sunday afternoon, though, just one No. 1 seed and one No. 2 seed had made it through to this Saturday’s semifinals.

From the left side of the bracket, No. 1 Florida cruised through its first four games to claim the South Region title. The Gators will now face a white-hot No. 7 Connecticut team that has already disposed of No. 2 Villanova, No. 3 Iowa State, and No. 4 Michigan State on its way to the East Region title. The early betting line for this game has Florida favored by 6 points and the total line has been set at 126.5 points.

The Gators’ straight-up winning streak reached 30 games with Saturday’s 62-52 win over Dayton as 10.5-point favorites and they are now 7-3 against the spread in their last 10 games. The Huskies’ stunning 60-54 victory against the Spartans as 5-point underdogs improved their record to 6-1 both SU and ATS in their last seven games.

The No. 2 Wisconsin Badgers claimed the West Region title with a 64-63 overtime victory against No. 1 Arizona this past Saturday night as 3.5-point underdogs. They will now square off against the surprising No. 8 Kentucky Wildcats, who followed up an impressive 74-69 win over rival No. 4 Louisville as 4.5-point underdogs in the Sweet 16 with Sunday’s 75-72 victory over No. 2 Michigan as 2.5-point favorites. Kentucky has been opened as a 2-point favorite over Wisconsin with the total set at 139 on the early NCAA Tournament betting odds for this matchup.

The Badgers have now gone 13-2 SU in their last 15 games with a record of 5-1 ATS in their last six outings. The total has stayed UNDER in three of their four NCAA Tournament games. The Wildcats’ run to this year’s Final Four has them 6-1 SU in their last seven contests with a perfect 7-0 record ATS during the same stretch. The total has gone OVER in their last three games.