March Madness Sweet 16 Betting Futures Favor Gonzaga

Dave Schwab Sports Betting Expert

2 minute read

This year’s NCAA Tournament for men’s college basketball is down to the final 16 teams. Three of the four No. 1 seeds remain in the field. However there has also been some major surprises along the way.

The Saint Peter’s Peacocks are playing the role of Cinderella in the Sweet 16 of the 2022 Big Dance as the No. 15 seed in the East Region.

The ACC’s North Carolina Tar Heels made some major noise by beating the Big 12’s Baylor Bears in overtime to eliminate the defending national champions from the field.

The sentimental favorite to win this year’s national title is another ACC team. Legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski has led the Duke Blue Devils back to the Sweet 16 in his final season at the helm.

Still leading the way as the favorite to win this tournament is the West Coast Conference’s Gonzaga Bulldogs as the top overall seed.

These are just a few of the big storylines heading into the second week of competition. As one of the biggest legal sports betting events in the US, this year’s NCAA Tournament has lived up to the concept of pure March Madness in any number of different ways.

US sportsbooks such as FanDuel and DraftKings have taken a moment to catch their breath after four days of nonstop action. The betting odds to win this tournament have been recalibrated for the final 16 teams. US books have also set the betting odds for this Thursday and Friday’s next round of games.

See March Madness offers from FanDuel, DraftKings, and more below!

Gonzaga started this tournament as the No. 1 seed in the West Region. Using a consensus of the betting odds, the Bulldogs opened play as +600 favorites in a field of 68 teams. With a pair of victories over Georgia State and Memphis, those betting odds have been lowered to +230 to win it all.

Next up for the Zags is Thursday’s region semifinal showdown against the No. 4 Arkansas Razorbacks. The Bulldogs are 8-point favorites with the total set at 156.5 points.

The second-favorite to win this year’s NCAA Tournament is the Big 12’s Kansas Jayhawks at +450 odds. The No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region opened at +1600 odds to win a national title ahead of its opening round game against Texas Southern.

Kansas won both the Big 12 regular season title and the recent conference tournament to build some serious momentum for a national championship run. The Jayhawks will face the No. 4 Providence Friars on Friday in their next game. Providence was the Big East’s regular season champion. Kansas is favored by 8.5 points in that game with the total set at 139.5 points.

Rounding out the top five in the updated NCAAB futures list are the Arizona Wildcats (+500), Purdue Boilermakers (+900) and the Houston Cougars (+900).

Saint Peter’s has the longest odds to win it all on the updated Sweet 16 betting board at +20000. The Peacocks opened this tournament at hefty +100000 odds to win the title. Their next game is Friday against Purdue as 13-point underdogs. The total for that game is set at 134.5 points.

Written by Dave Schwab, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert.

The featured image for this post was sourced on Unsplash.

Dave Schwab

Dave Schwab has been covering the sports betting industry for the past 12 years as the main focus of his specialty marketing company for online content. This endeavor followed a previous career in the field of sales and marketing in the wholesaling sector.Most of his weekly pieces focus on the rapidly expanding legal US sports betting industry. However, he still does extensive work covering betting angles that can provide a competitive edge to avid players. Dave believes that it is always a challenge to take past results and current form to try and correctly determine a future result. Sports brings out the unpredictability in what should be a fairly predictable outcome based on the stats, facts and recent trends in a particular matchup. More from Dave Schwab