NCAA Tournament by the odds: L.V. picks and perspective of the East Region

By Case Keefer (contact)

Published Tuesday, March 15, 2016 | 10:44 a.m.

Updated Thursday, March 17, 2016 | 9:02 a.m.

Note: This is the second of Talking Points’ four-part NCAA Tournament betting preview. Check out part 1 here. Come back later for the final two entries, and scroll to the bottom of the page for picks on the region's first-round games.

Sports book directors’ feelings on the East Region may develop similar to the way a music critic would chart appreciation for a great record.

Their enjoyment will likely be polarized immediately, a love or hate first impression bred out of the way the games play out. But over time, chances are the region will sound better to bookmakers as it cranks up.

It’s the byproduct of loading the bracket with the basketball equivalent of platinum-selling artists. Traditional powers that rocked through terrific seasons abound in the East, or exactly the types of teams that the majority of bettors want to get behind.

They’re going to do it at a disproportionate clip when the titans are taking on lesser-known programs. But eventually, the teams are going to match up against each other.

And when they do, it’s going to stir as much debate on which team will win as picking which is a superior listening experience between “Master of Puppets” and “Ride the Lightning”. Bookmakers will be left to kill ‘em all, positioning themselves in the middle without a major decision and possible profit either way.

Welcome to the marquee region, a collection of teams as sure to decide the winner of thousands of bracket pools as it is to dominate center screens at sports books throughout the next two weekends. The East is the only region where five different teams have drawn at least 4 percent of the distributed picks to win on brackets filled out on Yahoo.com so far.

The same five teams — No. 1 seed North Carolina, No. 2 seed Xavier, No. 3 seed West Virginia, No. 4 seed Kentucky and No. 5 seed Indiana — similarly are all listed at 7-to-1 or less to reach the Final Four at the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook. It’s the only bracket with such parity among the top five.

The South Region’s depth all the way down to its pair of No. 11 seeds keeps the East from being the strongest overall, but the latter is the heaviest on top and not far behind the former for second best.

Kentucky coach John Calipari may have snarled like James Hetfield during a sardonic rant on Selection Sunday, but he made some valid points. There’s no reason Kentucky, SEC tournament champions and co-regular season champions, and Big Ten regular season champion Indiana should set up to play in the second round, despite their preposterous refusal to continue their regular-season series.

It’s the most likely No. 4 seed vs. No. 5 seed game to take place in the tournament with current money lines implying around an 82 percent likelihood. The Wildcats and Hoosiers are the biggest favorites of their respective seeds in the first round.

Kentucky lays 14 points to America East champion Stony Brook, who has the nation’s leader in win shares in senior forward Jameel Warney. Indiana gives 11.5 points to Southern Conference champion Tennessee-Chattanooga, which has an upperclassmen-laden roster and plays a frustratingly deliberate style.

Looking even deeper if the seeds were to hold, there’s no reason two teams that spent weeks as the national championship favorite on Las Vegas betting boards this year should have to showdown in the Sweet 16. North Carolina and Kentucky opened as 10-to-1 co-favorites to cut down the nets last March and separated themselves even more at different junctures of the regular season.

Kentucky got as low as 5-to-1 after starting the season 7-0 straight-up, though it was only 2-5 against the spread. North Carolina was 5-to-1 after winning 12 straight, though it was only 5-7 against the spread during the run, going into February.

One place Calipari erred in his tirade was saying he expected Kentucky sent to an Alaskan outpost for its tournament site. That would never happen, because at this point, Kentucky more or less is the NCAA Tournament.

And it’s mostly Calipari’s doing. Since taking over at Big Blue Nation, he’s 22-4 straight-up and 15-10-1 against the spread in the NCAA Tournament with four Final Fours in five tries.

It looked like this might finally be the year for the Wildcats to cool off when they went 3-3 over a three-week stretch into February, including stunning upset losses to Auburn and Tennessee. But they responded to close the year on a 10-2 straight-up, 9-3 against the spread surge with sophomore point guard Tyler Ulis making a late push into Player of the Year candidacy.

He won the SEC MVP award after averaging 17 points and seven assists per game on the season. Top-recruit Skal Labissiere remains an enigma, but classmate Jamal Murray’s 20 points per game is the most ever from a Calipari-coached freshman.

One of the only coaches with better recent success from a gambling view in March Madness is two seed lines ahead of Calipari in the East. Xavier coach Chris Mack has gone a scorching 9-2 against the spread in the NCAA Tournament.

Bettors began latching onto the Musketeers this year after a 12-0 straight-up, 9-3 against the spread run to the start the season. A fast-paced offense led by versatile youngsters Edmond Sumner and Trevon Bluiett pushed sports books’ totals to go over in 21 of their 32 lined games, endearing the Musketeers to the betting public to a larger extent.

Further illuminating Calipari’s gripes, however, is the fact that Xavier is 25-to-1 in future odds to win the tournament despite being seeded higher than Kentucky, which is 15-to-1. Xavier could fall into the rare situation as a No. 2 seed underdog in the Sweet 16 if it advances that far.

West Virginia is power-rated higher and the only team in the region with more gambling success this season, going 20-11 against the spread to Xavier’s 19-13. The Mountaineers are another team bettors revered as the season progressed with their odds to win the tournament shooting down from 100- to 30-to-1 in one swoop after an upset of top overall seed Kansas in January.

West Virginia forced Kansas into 22 turnovers, not an unordinary amount for the press-happy Mountaineers onslaught. The only team in the nation with a higher turnover percentage is ironically their first-round opponent.

No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin enters the tournament on a 20-game winning streak behind senior guard Thomas Walkup, who rates second nationally in win shares. The Lumberjacks are understandably the shortest No. 14 seed underdog in three years, taking 7.5 points from the Mountaineers on the betting line.

Adjusting for the house’s hold percentage, Kentucky and West Virginia each carry a 15 percent chance of making it out of the East by the odds.

Put together, that doesn’t even equal North Carolina’s probability. The Tar Heels are having the season their fans have longed for since winning the 2009 national championship.

In their five NCAA Tournament berths since then, they are only 4-10 against the spread. None of those teams won both the ACC regular-season and tournament title like this year’s group, though.

Some would argue North Carolina is the hottest team in the field, having won seven of eight with the only defeat on the road against fellow No. 1 seed Virginia. The Tar Heels still hold a losing against-the-spread record on the season, which only one team has overcome to win the championship in the last 15 years, at 16-17-1.

But more importantly, senior forward Brice Johnson is the most dominant big man in the nation, averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds while rating fourth in the kenpom.com Player of the Year metric.

Kentucky may close the gap, but North Carolina is likely to stand as the East’s most popularly bet team. The Tar Heels are down to 5-to-1 to win the title from a 7-to-1 price at the start of the ACC Tournament less than a week ago.

Even the fringe contenders in this region have gotten support throughout the year. No. 9 seed Providence, which lays 2 points to USC in a first-round game in Raleigh, N.C., has covered its last five behind highly touted junior guard Kris Dunn.

No. 6 seed Notre Dame used a lethal offense to come two points away from shocking Kentucky in last year’s Elite Eight, and it’s maintained the same type of attack this season. The Irish’s two leading scorers from the memorable game against the Wildcats, senior forward Zach Auguste and junior forward Steve Vasturia, are both back.

Wisconsin, of course, finished the job on Kentucky the next round last year and was the public’s pick to win the national championship two nights later against Duke before falling 68-63 as a 1-point favorite. That letdown leaked out of bettors’ minds when the Badgers reeled off seven straight wins and covers, including three outright upsets, two months ago to secure an 18th straight tourney bid under new coach Greg Gard.

Boos and cheers between two competing factions will alternate rapidly on sports books’ floors when the East’s top draws start to clash. It will make for sweet harmonies to bookmakers’ ears.

Pick to win the East Region: West Virginia at 4-to-1 There’s slight value on the Mounties, who deserve to stand alone with the second-lowest odds in the region. This could backfire given the tough first-round game with Stephen F. Austin, but that might be the scariest matchup West Virginia will face until whoever survives into the Elite Eight.

East Region Picks Against the Spread (in order of confidence)

Note: We’ll pick every game throughout the tournament, giving analysis on every one in later rounds, even though it’s a losing long-term strategy. Last year, the blog finished 35-30-2. Check back after the First Four game for the final pick.

No. 11 seed Tulsa plus-4 vs. No. 11 seed Michigan

No. 13 seed Stony Brook plus-14.5 vs. No. 4 seed Kentucky

No. 15 seed Weber State plus-13.5 vs. No. 2 seed Xavier

No. 10 seed Pittsburgh plus-1 vs. No. 7 seed Wisconsin

No. 6 seed Notre Dame minus-2.5 vs. No. 11 seed Michigan

No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson plus-6 vs. No. 16 seed Florida Gulf Coast

No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin plus-7.5 vs. No. 3 seed West Virginia

No. 2 seed Providence minus-2 vs. No. 9 seed USC

No. 1 seed North Carolina minus-22 vs. No. 16 seed Florida Gulf Coast

No. 5 seed Indiana minus-11.5 vs. No. 12 seed Tennessee-Chattanooga

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.