Just 16 teams remain in the NCAA Tournament! There are a ton of juicy prop bets that are still available as we enter the second week of this three week spectacle, and BetUS Sportsbook has all of the ins and outs covered for you as you boost your bankrolls with the biggest tournament of the year!

Prop Bet #1 – Will all three #1 seeds reach the Elite 8?: Let’s just do some simply math at this point, shall we? If you take the best three lines you can find anywhere on the internet on the three #1 seeds to win on Thursday and Friday, you’ll come to just about +105 odds. By parlaying the Duke Blue Devils (-450), the Syracuse Orange (-290), and the Kentucky Wildcats (-500) on the moneyline at BetUS Sportsbook, you’ll come up with about -103 odds. Under that premise, there’s no reason to lay -115 with this prop, but there’s also no reason to wager no either. However, we do like the idea of assuming that the #1s are all getting through this weekend. Unlike Kansas, who was tested by #16 Lehigh for a little while before ultimately pulling away, the Cats, Dookies, and Orange have just come out and throttled their opponents so far in the dance. There’s no reason to think that an undermanned Purdue team is going to be able to stop the mighty Blue Devils, and certainly no reason to believe that a bunch of Ivy Leaguers are going to be able to stop a John Calipari coached team with almost a full week of preparation. That leaves Syracuse playing Butler. The Orange have probably been the most impressive of the #1 seeds after having rocked Gonzaga in the second round, and even though we’re not so sure that they’re the right choice against the six point spread, we are convinced that getting -103 odds on the moneyline for them is a fantastic price. So ignore the prop line, but run with the idea.
Selection: Parlay Kentucky, Duke, and Syracuse on the moneyline (-103) at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

Prop Bet #2 – Odds to win the South Region: It’s pretty clear that the Blue Devils are the favorites to win this bracket and go to the Final Four, but is that really justifiable at -145 odds? What you’re saying is that Coach K’s team is going to be at least three, if not four point favorites in a prospective Elite 8 matchup with Baylor? That doesn’t feel like what’s going to happen, especially if Duke even remotely struggles with #4 Purdue or the Bears obliterate #10 St. Mary’s. Don’t rest on the talent level on this Baylor team. G LaceDarius Dunn dropped 26 points on Old Dominion in the second round, and he has the ability to go off for 30+ on just about every team that he faces. Yes, this test against St. Mary’s is probably going to be a lot harder than it looks on paper with a #3 going against a #10, but if the Bears survive that one, you’ve got some fantastic odds on them to go to the Final Four.
Selection: Baylor Bears +225 at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

Prop Bet #3 – Odds to Reach NCAA Championship Final: We’re keying in on the left hand side of your bracket in the West and Midwest Regions. It’s pretty clear that the Midwest Bracket opened up a ton when #9 Northern Iowa knocked off overall #1 seed in this tournament, Kansas. Any of the four teams could still represent that region in our opinion. That leaves a date with most like either Syracuse or Kansas State in the Final Four. Why not take a stab on the Panthers at great odds in this situation? It’s basically a coin flip that they take out Michigan State, and we like our chances of Sparty getting bounced without G Kalin Lucas in the lineup. Yes, it could be a very difficult #2 Ohio State squad in the Elite 8, but it could just as easily be an overrated #6 Tennessee team as well. You may look up next week and see that you’ve got great odds on a mid-major team to win just one more game on the grandest stage in college basketball.
Selection: Northern Iowa Panthers +3000 at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

List of Current Sweet 16 Odds to Win The NCAA Tournament Can Be Found Below!

March Madness. That’s why we all watch and love the NCAA Tournament. Because no lead is ever safe and no favorite is every assured anything. It doesn’t matter if you’re favored by a single point or two dozen. Any team can, and quite frequently does beat anyone.

Ask the chalks of this tournament, the #1 Kansas Jayhawks out of the Midwest Bracket. At some sportsbooks, they were as low as +200 to win the entire tourney coming into play on Saturday, and they were sizeable favorites to take out the Missouri Valley champs, the #9 Northern Iowa Panthers.

Nobody told that to G Ali Farokhmanesh, who stood like a warrior at the three point line, stared the mighty Jayhawks in the face, damned the fact that his team had absolutely no business playing with the top team in the land, and let a brown dagger fly through the sky. When that dagger flushed through the twine, Farokhmanesh was immediately placed in lore in tiny Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Forget about the fact that Farokhmanesh’s shot really had no business being taken. It defied all logic. After all, the Panthers were up a point with the ball with less than 30 seconds to play, and any conventionally thinking person would’ve dribbled around and waited to get fouled.

But defying logic is what makes this tournament great. And now, #1 is no more.

The beauty of this tournament this season is that there are 11 conferences represented in the Sweet 16 and only the Big Ten has three representatives. Fans from all across the country will have a relatively local team to latch onto, which could make this a very, very interesting four days of basketball coming up this weekend.

The new favorites of the field are the #1 Kentucky Wildcats (+250 at 5Dimes Sportsbook. The Cats have looked great in two tourney games so far, winning against both #16 East Tennessee State and #9 Wake Forest by 20+ points apiece. Stopping G John Wall, G Eric Bledsoe, F Patrick Patterson, and F DeMarcus Cousins seems like a nearly impossible task, especially for some lowly #12 seed out of the Ivy League… but beating names like Aldrich, Morris, Morris, and Collins didn’t seem likely for a bunch of Missouri Valley guys either.

As for those Valley dwellers, they’re still the second longest shot to win the tournament on the board at +6600 at 5Dimes Sportsbook, and there’s reason to believe that those odds are simply too long. UNI draws #5 Michigan State in the Sweet 16, a team that is going to be playing without G Kalin Lucas for the remainder of the season courtesy of a ruptured Achilles tendon. Without Lucas this year, the Spartans looked like an average team at best, and an extraordinary performance once again by the men clad in purple and gold could lead to yet another upset and a date with either #2 Ohio State or #6 Tennessee in the Elite 8.

Both the #1 Duke Blue Devils (+450 at 5Dimes Sportsbook) and the #1 Syracuse Orange (+475 at 5Dimes Sportsbook) have relatively easy draws to get to the Final Four for top seeds, as the Orange must beat #5 Butler and then either #2 Kansas State or #6 Xavier, while things have opened up particularly nicely for the Dookies, who get #4 Purdue this week and will finish the weekend with either #3 Baylor or #10 St. Mary’s.

Current Sweet 16 Odds @ 5Dimes Sportsbook (as of 3/23/10):
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Kentucky +250
Duke +450
Syracuse +475
Ohio State +825
West Virginia +850
Kansas State +950
Baylor +1800
Michigan State +2500
Tennessee +3300
Butler +4000
Xavier +4500
St. Mary’s +5500
Washington +5500
Purdue +6000
Northern Iowa +6600
Cornell +7500

Two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are now in the books, and here at Bankroll Sports, we’re giving all sorts of heck to the teams and players that were totally missing in action to cost their teams a shot at the National Championship.

Rap Sheet Picture of the Week

Kansas Jayhawks C Markieff Morris in disbelief after the #1 team in the land was bounced by an inferior Missouri Valley Conference foe.

Where else can we start than right at the top? The Kansas Jayhawks are going to be looked at as the biggest disappointment of this entire season. They were the #1 team in the land and the #1 overall seed in this tournament, and they knew that they were going to have to face a pair of mid-majors in this tournament before heading to the Sweet 16. It took a strong second half run for the Jayhawks to finally take out #16 Lehigh on Thursday, and it became increasingly clear that this was a squad that was disinterested with playing these small time inferior squads.

Enter the #9 Northern Iowa Panthers. If you want proof that this was an underachieving team, just look at how well the Jayhawks played when desperation finally set in. C Cole Aldrich looked like a man on a mission, and the defense was stifling down the stretch. But the great equalizer in this tournament, the three point shot, finally gave the Panthers a four point lead that they would never relent. Now, HC Bill Self has to answer a lot of questions about why team looked like garbage, and G Sherron Collins has to deal with criticism for shooting 0/6 from downtown in the team’s final game of the season. This was really, really inexcusable Kansas, and you know it.

However, the Jayhawks were the only disappointing group in the Midwest Region. The Georgetown Hoyas had to be considered a trendy selection to come out of this bracket, as they marched all the way to the Big East final before getting knocked off in the dying seconds by West Virginia. It didn’t take long to be bounced from the tournament that really mattered, though. Sure, we’ll listen to the fatigue factor thing, but let’s be realistic here. This first round debacle against the Ohio Bobcats was against a #14 seed who was a #9 in their own mid-major conference. No excuses. None whatsoever.

In fact, let’s just give a little bit of grief to the rest of the Big East. Remember when this league was supposed to have nine, ten, maybe even 11 teams in this tournament? Five of the eight teams were gone in the first three days of this tournament, and one of those teams that made it to the second round, the #2 Villanova Wildcats, nearly became the fifth #2 seed in the history of this tournament to lose to a #15 seed in the first round of the dance.

Here’s ranting on the Mountain West and the Atlantic 10 as well. Three days into the dance, and all four teams out of the MWC were already eliminated. Save watching Xavier in the A-10, watching this conference play ball in March Madness has been incredibly painful. Both the Temple Owls and the Richmond Spiders were crushed in their first round games by higher seeds.

Don’t mind the silence that you hear right now in the heartland of our country at this point. Normally, after a Kansas Jayhawks basketball game, you hear blue and red clad nut cases chanting in that slow, monotone, drone-like voice, “Rock Chalk Jayhawk K-U.”

If we slip the ‘A’ out of “chalk,” scoot the ‘K’ over a spot, buy an ‘E’, and change the ‘K’ in “KU” to a ‘P’, you can sum up this performance with our new saying.

Rock Choke Jayhawk P-U!

There are times that perception just doesn’t amount to reality. This wasn’t one of those cases. We all saw on Saturday afternoon that Kansas was one of the most talented teams in the nation. C Cole Aldrich looked like a man amongst boys at times, bullying his way through the paint like an enraged animal. Any time that HC Bill Self didn’t like what was happening on the court, he could bring in a new fresh set of five players if he wanted to and still have a solid looking club out there that was good enough to play with anyone in the nation.

Saturday’s shocking two-point loss to the Northern Iowa Panthers was simply a case of the magic (or if you will, the madness) of March.

Let’s step back for a minute and give a major thumbs down to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, which punished Northern Iowa for some unknown reason by making it a #9 seed in the dance in spite of the fact that it won 28 games and the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament titles.

HC Ben Jacobsen’s crew won each of their MVC Tournament games by at least 15 points. They slammed Old Dominion in BracketBusters and destroyed Siena in a BracketBusters rematch game from a year ago this year as well. Yes, losing to DePaul, Evansville, and Bradley were all unsightly losses, but what more did you expect from this team?

They played fantastic defense all season, allowing a grand total of one opponent to reach the 70-point plateau against them, and they won 12 games by at least 15 points this year.

I know the logic… Play somebody.

Guess what? The Panthers just played somebody… and won.

That point aside, let’s not belittle the performance that this team put up over the first three days of this tournament. G Ali Farokhmanesh not only nailed the three pointer on Thursday that buried UNLV, but he also dropped four more three balls on the Jayhawks and scored 16 points in the upset on Saturday. F Jordan Eglseder, who hit a grand total of one three point basketball all season dropped two threes on KU as well. The team turned over the Jayhawks 15 times and stayed competitive in the rebounding battle at just -5.

That being said… C’mon Kansas. You’re Kansas.

Maybe we should’ve known that something was wrong with the Jayhawks when they were pushed for at least a little while by #16 Lehigh on Thursday night. Tournament teams in general shouldn’t be struggling with the Mountain Hawks, especially when you’re the #1 overall seed in this tournament.

At the outset of this tournament, everyone was asking the question whether it was going to be Maryland or Michigan State that was going to get murdered by the Jayhawks in the Sweet 16 and whether it was going to by Ohio State or Georgetown falling in the Elite 8.

Self was the one man that knew what he was getting into, as he immediately pointed out UNI as a potential trap game on his squad’s road to Indianapolis.

He was ready. His team wasn’t.

The Panthers jumped out to a 10-2 run and really never looked back, controlling the game’s tempo by slowing down the Jayhawks to a plodding effort.

During that whole game, it was only a matter of time before the Jayhawks went on a run, just like they did against both Texas Tech and Texas A&M in the Big XII Tournament. Someone was going to wake G Sherron Collins or one of the other many stars on this team up.

Collins shot just 4/15 from the field and 0/6 from downtown for the game.

The run was never really complete. The choke job, however, is finished.

The Jayhawks are #1 in the land no more, and though it’s clear that Northern Iowa is no normal #9 seed, this is still a case of a team that just didn’t give its best effort in a do-or-die situation.

Welcome to March Madness, boys and girls. The fun is only just beginning.

List of Current Odds to Win The NCAA Tournament Can Be Found Below!

The NCAA Tournament is through its first round, and there has been plenty of madness to go around.

The Big East has taken a major, major hit, as only Villanova, Syracuse, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh remain from a conference which had eight bids (seven of which were Top-6 seeds) at the start of this tournament. Survival also wasn’t easy for the Wildcats, who went from +800 at the outset of March Madness to +2500 after narrowly beating lowly #15 Robert Morris on Thursday afternoon.

Many find the #10 seed in this bracket, the St. Mary’s Gaels to be a team to watch out for. The South Region is probably the weakest region left, and if there is a #10 seed that can come out of nowhere and go to the Final Four, this may be it. C Omar Samhan was mired in foul trouble for the majority of the Gaels’ game against the Richmond Spiders on Thursday afternoon, but he still picked up 29 points and 12 rebounds. St. Mary’s has a team that can stroke the three-ball like none other in the country (41.2%), and that has led it into the Round of 32 in the dance.

There are a few other teams that may be worth taking a flier on because of the strength (or lack thereof) of their upcoming games. The #3 New Mexico Lobos may be an underdog to the #11 Washington Huskies on Saturday, but catching a #3 seed at +6600 after one round seems just too good to pass on. HC Steve Alford’s club may have struggled just a bit with their #14 seed in the first round of this tournament, but make no mistake about it. This is a team that can play with anyone in America. A potential date with #2 West Virginia is going to be difficult, but at these types of odds, the Mountain West regular season champions are going to be worth a look.

On the other side of the bracket, things appear to be set up quite nicely for the #2 Ohio State Buckeyes in the Midwest. Yes, Ohio State knows that two rounds from now, it is probably going to have to face #1 Kansas, but #3 Georgetown and #7 Georgia Tech have both already been dismissed from this tournament, which really could set up the stage for an easy waltz for the Bucks to the Elite 8. Considering grabbing their stock at +1400 while that number is still available, because they clearly have better than a one in 14 chance of winning this tournament right now.

All that the chalk holding up in the West Bracket did was set up the stage for Syracuse to continue to march on. No one expects #8 Gonzaga to give the ‘Cuse a game, and with Vanderbilt already dismissed from this region, a trip to the Elite 8 seems like a formality. Yes, there are four very nasty teams sitting on the other side of this bracket, but the Orange are going to be favored no matter who they play, and if they reach the Elite 8, having +700 on a #1 seed at that stage is having a fantastic price.

Current March Madness Odds @ 5Dimes Sportsbook(as of 3/20/10):
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Kansas +250
Kentucky +475
Syracuse +700
Duke +750
West Virginia +1200
Ohio State +1400
Kansas State +1500
Villanova +2500
Baylor +3000
Pittsburgh +4500
Michigan State +4500
Butler +4500
BYU +4500
Wisconsin +5500
Maryland +5500
Tennessee +5500
New Mexico +6600
Texas A&M +6600
Purdue +7500
Xavier +7500
California +7500
Washington +7500
Gonzaga +8000
Missouri +10000
Georgia Tech +10000
Wake Forest +12500
St. Mary’s +12500
Northern Iowa +15000
Cornell +15000
Old Dominion +20000
Murray State +22500
Ohio +25000

Someone’s going to have to forgive Big East Commissioner John Marinatto if this is what he looks like after yesterday’s NCAA Tournament games from his conference.

It’s bad enough that that’s Buzz Williams, the head coach of the Marquette Golden Eagles, who crashed out of the dance in their most predictable fashion: losing by two points practically at the buzzer. It was par for the course for a team that only suffered one loss by double digits all year long and lost six games in conference by less than a touchdown.

An 11 seed (as the Washington Huskies were) from a power conference (even though there’s a debate about just how “powerful” the Pac-10 was this year) isn’t the end of the world. Upsets happen all the time like that this time of year, and the Big East knew that it wasn’t going to have an 8-0 first round of this tournament in all likelihood.

Even losing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish wasn’t all that big of a deal to the Big East. After all, the Irish were probably the weakest of tournament teams out of this conference, and they were still adapting to a new system and life where their best player (Luke Harangody) was coming off of the bench and not starting.

Notre Dame was probably an overrated #6 seed playing against an Old Dominion squad that was probably an underrated #11. So it was par for the course for the luck of the Irish to run out late in the game against the Monarchs, and again, it wasn’t that big of a deal or that black of an eye to take.

Now… Villanova…. You’re a significantly, significantly different story.

Once upon a time a threat to take over the #1 spot in the AP Poll, the Villanova Wildcats entered this tournament looking to make amends for a bad showing in the Big East Tournament, which wrapped up after just one game following a loss to the aforementioned Golden Eagles. Surely, there was no way that there was even a remote struggle coming for a team that was going to be on the #1 line of the tourney if not for that late season swoon, right?

Wrong.

Nova was acting like a defeated team before it even stepped anywhere near the court in Providence on Thursday. HC Jay Wright benched both G Corey Fisher and G Scottie Reynolds at the outset of the game for a violation of team rules. His Cats fell behind Robert Morris, the Northeast Conference champions early. No big deal, right?

It is a big deal when you’re still behind by nine points late in the game! However, thanks to officiating that allowed the Wildcats back into the game and some great free throw shooting from Reynolds (who had better have had a great day from the charity stripe after going 2/15 from the floor and 1/8 from downtown), somehow, the Cats clawed their way into overtime. From there, they asserted themselves, and finally downed the scrappy Colonials.

It was all over the news during the 2:30 games as well as in that break between the morning and afternoon sessions. Everyone was talking about how Villanova is done and how St. Mary’s is going to pick it off on Saturday and that that was that for the Big East giants.

That statement might’ve been almost right… But maybe that was that for the Big East period.

Hey Georgetown Hoyas, all you had to do was go out and take care of an Ohio Bobcats team that was probably overrated as a #14, as it was the #9 seed in its own lousy conference during the year and really beat no one of any real note outside of the MAC this year. You could’ve restored order in your own conference.

Instead, you fell behind by double digits in the first half, played a miserable defensive game, and ultimately crashed out of the tourney in the most embarrassing way possible.

It’s not even like the Hoyas can say that they were just a victim of the proverbial “March Madness.” This wasn’t a situation where Vanderbilt was in, where it just got unlucky with a crazy shot at the end of the game. There were no crazy shots. There was just sheer domination.

So now, the Big East enters its second day of basketball, and Syracuse, West Virginia, Louisville, and Pittsburgh will hope to make a better impression on the college basketball world than what their conference brethren did yesterday.

The lesson learned, though, is that the big, bad Big East might not be quite as big and bad as we once thought.

(2010 NCAA Tournament Printable Brackets; PDF – GIF) The field of 65 has been set as the NCAA Tournament is about set to begin on Thursday! Here at Bankroll Sports, we’re going to take a look at some of the tournament-long props that you can invest in at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link)

We’ll have a look at your March Madness prop sheet on a daily basis in this tournament, as we analyze the best ways to boost your bankrolls for the rest of the three-week spectacle.

Prop Bet #1 – Total Number of Games Won by the Pac-10 – Over/Under 1.5: Boy, doesn’t it feel like a slam dunk that a conference that normally has a ton of entrants in it is going to find a way to win two measly games out of 64? Not this year. Both Washington and Cal were subjected to three games in as many nights in the Pac-10 Tournament, and both must be on incredibly tired legs. The Golden Bears really don’t have a great chance at grabbing more than one victory, as they have to deal with Duke in the second round of the tournament if they can beat Louisville, a team that many think can do some real damage in the dance. The only other option for the Pac-10 is its conference champion, Washington. U-Dub was a fringe bubble team at best before winning the conference, and now it’s being asked to beat a Marquette team which may be the most underrated squad in the entire country. If by chance the Huskies survive as the #11 seed in the South, they’ll have to play Baylor, largely considered one of the most talented teams in the nation. Seeing one of these two teams get a win seems like a reasonable option, but two is a bit far-fetched and zero is much more reasonable. Even if the two do split in Round 1, neither one is likely to be a favorite in the second round, so laying -150 chalk is a good option for a prop that may be a winner by the end of the day on Friday.

Selection: Pac-10 Under 1.5 Wins (-150) at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link)

Prop Bet #2 – Will a #14, #15, or #16 seed win a game?: The odds in this one look to be stacked a bit against you from the get-go, but let’s take a closer look at this virtual 12-team play or fade parlay. Since the expansion of the tournament to 64 teams in 1985, there have only been four #2 seeds out of 100 that have been defeated. Fifteen of the 100 #14s advanced to round two (and for what it’s worth, two of those made it to the Sweet 16). History will tell you that, if all things are considered equal, there are 19 times in 25 tournaments, or once every 1.3 tournaments that this happens. So, everyone is going to promptly jump on the “no” in this prop at even money and think that they’re getting a steal, and then complain when some unlikely #15 seed blows up their bet. Don’t be fooled! The #14s this season are all very, very dangerous clubs, and for our money, we think the #3s are especially weak. The odds say that someone big is going down at some point early in this tournament. Bank on the madness that is March to claim a huge scalp on one of the first two days.

Selection: Yes (-130) at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link)

Prop Bet #3 – Total Games Won by Atlantic 10 Teams – Over/Under 2.5 Wins: There’s a reason that the A-10 is favored in all three of its first round games this year. The Temple Owls, Richmond Spiders, and Xavier Musketeers not only have first round winning abilities, but in the event that even two of them get upset in Round 1, any of the three can also roll to the Elite 8 and make this prop a winner for you the hard way as well. Temple is especially dangerous in a very defensive mini-bracket in Jacksonville, and if it can survive a first round date with Cornell, we like this team’s chances of making it to the Sweet 16. That would leave either a victory for the Spiders against a St. Mary’s team that might not have been in the NCAA Tournament without the WCC crown, or one for Xavier over what has to be a very, very tired Minnesota team which played four games in as many nights at Conseco Fieldhouse last week.

Selection: A-10 Over 2.5 Wins (-140) at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)