Sunday, March 20, 2016

NCAA Day IV - Initial preview



Good morning everyone!!!  I was looking at the point spreads for the games today, and I'm not super optimistic we are going to see a lot of upsets today.  There are only two games today, where the point spreads are less than 6 points, Xavier/Wisconsin, where Xavier is a 5 point favorite, and SF Austin/Notre Dame, where it essentially a coin toss.  All other games look to be similar to the games we saw yesterday.  If that is the case, I'm going to get a lot of reading done today.

Here's the breakdown of the first 2 games:

Villanova/Iowa

Villanova: 178
Iowa: 26
Other: 9

Charles Barkley keeps talking about how Villanova is under the radar, and he may be right.  They are in the bracket with Kansas, and Kansas is the overwhelming favorite to win the South region.  I had to look up my picks last and I realized that I had them in the Final 4.  I don't know if I would make that same pick again today, but I'm also guessing that most people would like a do-over on their picks at this point.

Notre Dame / Stephen F Austin

Notre Dame: 50
Stephen F Austin: 2
Other: 161

This is the game of the day, in my opinion.  It's the closest line in Vegas, and it's also the game that any number of people can use to separate themselves from the rest of the field.  If you've been in my pools before, you know that the structure is such that you almost certainly need to pick the champion.  In essence, everyone is competing against the other people that picked the same Champion as you.  Given that, these early round games act as de facto tiebreakers.  If you can pick up 2 points with Notre Dame of Stephen F. Austin today, that is way more valuable than picking up 2 points with, say, Oklahoma today, since so many people are going to do it.

Good luck!!!!!!

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