The Midwest Region of the men’s NCAA bracket looks almost too top heavy.
No. 1 seed Houston was at the top of the polls all season. No. 2 Texas was in a fight for the Big 12 regular season title all year (winning the conference tournament), and the rest of the region is mostly teams who came on strong down the final stretch of games.
So, of course, we should expect the unexpected here.
Bracket-busters like Penn State, Texas A&M and Kent State are lurking.
So who should you bet on to escape Kansas City en route to the Final Four in Houston, Texas?
We’ve got you covered.
No. 9 Auburn (-120) vs. No. 8 Iowa
Iowa is a good team. But it’s not great. In fact, when it comes to the NCAA tournament, it might even be a bit of a fraud. The Hawkeyes enter the big dance having lost four of their last six. Their best win all year was a road victory at No. 15 Indiana. They lost ranked matchups to Purdue, Duke and gave up the most points per game in the Big Ten (74.5).
More concerning, Iowa allowed opponents to shoot a Big Ten-worst 36.3 percent from behind the arc.
This should be one of the more entertaining games in the bracket. Just don’t expect the higher seed to come out on top.
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No. 14 Kennesaw State (+11.5) vs. No. 3 Xavier
An outright win for Kennesaw State would be shocking. Covering an 11.5-point spread? Much less so.
The Owls are 21-10 ATS this year, including 4-1 ATS in their last five games. Compare that to a Xavier team that’s 18-15-1 ATS and 2-3 ATS in its last five.
Expect this to become a pretty popular public betting pick by tipoff on Friday.
Texas A&M to reach the Sweet 16
Here’s what the Aggies did over their final stretch of the season: defeated No. 11 Tennessee, defeated No. 2 Alabama, defeated a wildly athletic Arkansas team and defeated a Vanderbilt team on a Cinderella-esqe run through the SEC tournament.
It just needs to get past Penn State and the winner of Texas-Colgate to reach the second weekend of the tournament.
This is an Aggies team playing without fear and with the confidence that it can take down any opponent it faces. There’s a reason why the No. 7 seed feels so disrespected.
Imagine what will happen if it faces an old (and soon to be renewed) rival in Texas.
