Kentucky Big Favorite to Win March Madness

The online sportsbooks wasted little time opening the No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats as 6/5 favorites to remain perfect on the year by winning this season’s NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats have already posted a straight-up 34-0 record through the regular season and SEC Tournament, so just six more teams stand in the way of perfection.

The Wildcats’ main competition as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest is expected to come from No. 2 Kansas or No. 3 Notre Dame coming out of the bottom half of the region’s bracket, but any real test probably will not come until the Final Four.

The No. 1 seed in the West Region is the Big Ten’s Wisconsin Badgers. They rolled to both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles in impressive fashion with double-digit victories in their last five games as part of an overall SU record of 31-3. Their betting odds to win a national title are third on the Bovada futures board at 17/2. The team that will most likely get in their way is the No. 2 seed in the West, Arizona.

The Wildcats’ betting odds to win it all are set at 15/2 at Bovada after cruising to both the regular season and tournament title in the Pac-12. Arizona has won its last 11 games SU while going a profitable 9-2 against the spread. It capped off this run with a lopsided 80-52 romp over Oregon in the Pac-12 Tournament title game as a 12.5-point favorite.

The team with the fourth-best odds to win this season’s NCAA Tournament are the ACC’s Duke Blue Devils at 9/1 at Bovada. Duke bowed out of last week’s ACC Tournament in the semifinals after losing to Notre Dame 74-64 as an 8.5-point favorite; however its overall resume was still strong enough to earn the top seed in the South Region.

The two top teams in the East Region are No. 1 Villanova and No. 2 Virginia and they each have 10/1 odds at Bovada to advance all the way to the finals and win this year’s national title.

The Big East’s Wildcats are riding a SU 15-game winning streak into the NCAA Tournament that includes a highly profitable 13-2 record ATS. The Cavaliers made an early exit from the ACC Tournament with a 71-67 loss to North Carolina in the semifinals; they are 10-2 SU in their last 12 games, but just 4-7-1 ATS.