NCAA March Madness: First Four Best Bets for Each Game

It is finally here my friends. The March Madness Tournament is one of the best sporting events of the year, and the excitement of having four games going on at once in the mid-afternoon on a weekday is unparalleled. Especially if you have some bets riding on all four of those games and you’re biting your nails for an hour straight (that actually kind of sounds like torture, but trust me, its fun).

I bet the Tournament a little differently than I do the regular season and Conference Tournaments. March Madness is a volume game to me, where I do the research for each and every game, and take a stab at a line where I find the most value. Therefore, my units will be smaller than usual, so take that into account when betting based on these picks.

While researching each and every game takes a significant amount of time, I believe it will lead to better returns long-term with the volatility of the one-and-out nature of the Tournament. I guess we will see, as I will be posting my record on each blog as well as on my twitter feed at https://twitter.com/PlusMoneyPost. Gotta stay accountable.

But before we get to the real March Madness Tournament, we have the First Four, play-in games to determine the final field. I found some good edges on these games, and the analysis is below for each one. So let’s go.

Game 1: Wagner vs Howard – March 19, 4:40 p.m. CST

Line: Howard -3, 128.0 O/U

Picks: Howard -3 (0.5 units), Howard Team Over 65.5 (0.5 units)

Well, here are two autobids with extremely different profiles, yet they are oddly similar when it comes to their final rankings. Wagner has a bad offence, but pretty decent defence. They rank 171st in the Country in KenPom defensive efficiency rating, and are a clean 6th in the Country allowing 62.1 ppg. Then….. the offence, at 334th in KenPom offensive efficiency and 345th in ppg at 63.5 ppg. You can see that their games are often rock fights, where each team has a lid on the basket. In Wagner’s last four games, the total did not exceed 122.

Then we have Howard. I actually saw a lot of people that had Howard to win the MEAC despite their seeding. Howard is an absolute sieve defensively, ranking 334th in defensive efficiency on KenPom, and ranking 254th in the Country with 74.4 ppg. Yuck. But the offence actually has some juice. 192nd in offensive efficiency and 127th in the Country with 75.1 ppg.

I just don’t see Wagner being able to keep up with Howard here. Now it’s fair to say Howard played in a conference with worse defensive teams than Wagner. But take a look at Howard’s recent results against teams with similar defensive efficiency to Wagner. 70-67 and 85-66 wins against Delaware State (166th in defensive efficiency, better than Wagner). You also have a recent win against Norfolk State (226th in defensive efficiency) where the final was 80-74. This team has shown recently that they can get buckets against better defensive teams.

When you take into consideration that Wagner’s last five opponents rank 324, 270, 252, 312, and 286 in offensive efficiency, we can’t put stock into their consistent low point totals. Key games showing why Wagner can’t get it done are a recent loss to Le Moyne (286th in offensive efficiency) where Wagner allowed 70, and a 73-72 loss to Central Connecticut (270th in offensive efficiency). With those results in Wagner’s last ten games, Howard has to cover and put up more than 65 points.

Game 2: Colorado State vs Virginia, March 19, 7:10 p.m. CST

Line: Colorado State -2, O/U 120.5

Pick: Colorado State -2 (1.0u)

With this projected total, the game looks like a stinker. Blame it on Virginia. For the basketball purists, there might be some appreciation for Virginia’s disciplined style of play and defence. But to any other viewer, it can suck watching their games.

The defence is stellar. 7th in defensive efficiency on KenPom and 3rd in the Country allowing a mere 59.5 ppg. Sick joke. But the offence makes watching paint dry seem pretty entertaining. 194th in offensive efficiency and only scoring 63.9 ppg (344th in the Country, right near the basement). Virginia wasn’t a Tournament team to me, but I can understand it if I squint hard enough at their resume.

Meanwhile, Colorado State is just a better overall basketball team. They are in the Mountain West compared to Virginia being in the ACC (better league and tougher opponents), and there will be people that lean into Colorado State getting bogged down by the pace and defence of Virginia. But here’s the thing; Colorado State has good defence too. They rank 38th in defensive efficiency on KenPom, allowing 68.4 ppg (good for 74th in the Country). The offensive is almost ranked identically in offensive efficiency (42nd) putting up 76.4 ppg (97th). A top 45 team in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency ranks on the offensive and defensive end is a great look.

Based on all of these numbers – I can conclude one thing: Even if this is a rock fight, Colorado State can win. The defence will give Virginia fits, and the offence can push enough to put up more points than Virginia. It could even be that Colorado State’s shots start falling and they beat Virginia by 10. In either situation, I see them covering this minimal spread.

Game 3: Grambling State vs Montana State, March 20, 4:40 p.m. CST

Line: Montana State -4, O/U 134.5

Pick: Montana State Team Over 69.5 (1.0u)

Here it is again, a story of a bad offence/good defence (ppg-wise) team in Grambling State, and a good offence/bad defence team in Montana State. Again, I see the better team offensively being able to get buckets, and here’s why.

Montana State averages 75.1 ppg, good for 128th in the Country. They need to score this much, as they allow 74.1 ppg, good for 245th in the Country. We look at their last five games, the results are: 85-70 win (against Montana), 74-71 win (Sacramento State), 91-82 win (Weber State), 76-64 (Weber State again), and 108-104 loss (Eastern Washington). The two scores against Weber State stand out, as Weber State is 203 in KenPom defensive efficiency (very close to Grambling State’s defensive efficiency at 197). Montana State put up well over 69.5 in both those games.

Then, we look at Grambling State. 198 in KenPom defensive efficiency and only allowing 69.0 ppg (nice), good for 88th in the Country. Their defence has been lacklustre in certain spots recently, where they gave up 66 to Texas Southern (306th in KenPom offensive efficiency compared to Montana State at 234) and 72 to Alabama State in regulation time (352 KenPom offensive efficiency compared to Montana State at 234).

The fact that in their last five games, Grambling State has allowed 66 and 72 to offensive teams that are quite a bit worse than Montana State, makes this line an easy smash.

Game 4: Colorado vs Boise State, March 20, 7:10 p.m. CST

Line: Colorado -2.5, O/U 140.5

Pick: Over 140.5 (1.0u)

The most exciting game of the First Four and it’s not particularly close. Both of these teams are metric darlings.

Colorado ranks 25th in KenPom offensive efficiency and 42nd in defensive efficiency. They average 79.3 ppg (50th in Country) and allow only 71.2 ppg (150th in Country). While they lost to Conference Tournament Champs Oregon, they are still winners of 4 of their last 5.

Then there’s Boise State. They rank 52nd in KenPom offensive efficiency and 29th in defensive efficiency. They average 75.8 ppg (108th in Country) and allow only 67.5 ppg (57th in Country). While their Conference Tournament performance was poor, they lost to a pretty damn good New Mexico team.

So, why is this game going over? We look to each team’s most recent games for that answer.

Here are Colorado’s points scored for their last 5:

68 against Oregon (70th in KenPom defensive efficiency)
58 against Washington State (27th in KenPom defensive efficiency)
72 against Utah (41st in KenPom defensive efficiency)
73 against Oregon State (121st in KenPom defensive efficiency)
79 against Oregon (see above).

As you can see, these are decent-to-good defensive teams, all ranking in the top 125 out of 362. To me, the Washington State game is an outlier, with really bad shooting (43% from the field, 20% on 15 threes, 11/17 on free throws) and careless play (12 turnovers). As long as they take care of the ball and take decent shots, this is unlikely to happen again. So in the other four against these decent-to-good defensive teams, the team totals are 68, 72, 73, and 79. If Colorado puts these numbers up, they have likely done their part in hitting the over.

The more glaring example of why this score is going over is Boise State’s last four games:

Loss to New Mexico 66-76 (41st in KenPom offensive efficiency)
Win against San Diego State 79-77 (72 of SD State’s points came in regulation) (62nd in KenPom offensive efficiency)
Loss to Nevada 66-76 (40th in KenPom offensive efficiency)
Win against New Mexico 89-79 (41st in KenPom offensive efficiency)

We see here that four teams ranking 40-65 in KenPom offensive efficiency put up 76, 72 (in regulation), 76, and 79. Colorado is 25th in KenPom offensive efficiency. They have the ability to put up even more points than these totals. But Boise State can keep up, putting up 72 in regulation against SD State and 89 against New Mexico (both better defensive teams than Colorado).

All of this adds up to what I see as a total that should be around 146.5/147.5, so I will take this value at Over 140.5 and run with it.

Well there it is everyone. Let’s have a banger First Four so we can carry bankroll into March Madness.

I will be posting an article soon for long-shot futures I like, along with another article for picks in most, if not every, game on day one of the Tournament. If you want to make sure you don’t miss these articles, follow me on X at @plusmoneypost as I will be sharing them there.

Summary of Picks