NCAA Tournament Best Bets Round of 64 (3/21/24)
Author: Dylan Lieck | March 21, 2024 | 1:51 P.M. CST
2 Top Bets of the NCAA Tournament Round 1 (2 Units Each)
Best Bet #1: 11 New Mexico Lobos -125 vs. 6 Clemson
In this century in the NCAA tournament (Since 2000), when an 11 seed is FAVORED over a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament the 11 seeds have won outright 11 out of 15 times and they are 11-4 Against the Spread in those games. That’s a nice trend to back this pick, but it’s in no way why I like the Lobos here. I LOVE the Lobos in this game for a number of reasons, including the makeup of the team, the improvement of Richard Patino as a coach, and their performance down the stretch in the MW tourney.
Let’s start with the makeup of this team. We know that in this time of year you do not want to be a team that relies heavily on big men. Think about Purdue last year, relying so heavily on Zach Edey, only to get bounced in Round 1. Or Arizona, who’s top 2 highest usage players were 7 footers, only to get upset by 15 seed Princeton. It’s just difficult this time of year, in a tournament setting, in a day and age when threes and efficient scoring are important, for teams to heavily rely on post ups and slow big men. GUARDS DOMINATE MARCH. And New Mexico has 3 of the best guards in the country; in fact, they may have THE BEST trio of guards in the country in Jaelen House, Jamal Mashburn Jr, and Donovan Dent. This set of Lobo guards combine to average 45 points this season, with each of them averaging 14+ PPG. They are lead by Jaelen House (north of 17 per game) who has been phenomenal as of late. In the MW Championship House went for 28, while Mashburn went for 21. The thing that makes this trio so scary is the fact that on any given night ANY one of these guys can give you 25+ and we’ve seen it throughout the season. In that MW Championship game, Dent went out with flu like symptoms early in the game. He ended up playing just 13 minutes, and did not score. Most teams losing a 15 PPG scorer mid game would be significantly hindered. It did not matter to the Lobos, as House and Mashburn combined for just shy of SIXTY, as they went on to take down the MW Conference Tourney Title.
All of that and I didn’t even mention Jacob Toppin, the freshman of the year in the MW conference. This kid has legitimately gotten better every single game he’s played. He’s going to be an absolute force in this conference over the next few seasons, and I actually believe he has a shot to be a pro at some point. He has elite athleticism, he’s an incredible shot blocker and he has great putback ability on the offensive glass. Combine him with NM’s other big man and they are really hard to score on at the rim. The Lobos led the MW in blocked shots. They are a deceptively good defensive team, largely due to the aggressiveness of the guards forcing TO’s and the combination of the big men down low blocking shots (Top 25 in Defensive efficiency according to KenPom).
Then we look at Clemson’s side, and they are the exact mold of a team I hate playing on in the tourney. They rely heavily on back to the basket post ups and their leading scorer is their big man. This doesn’t mean that Clemson can’t win this game; this is the NCAA tournament where weird things happen, and it’s a one-game sample size. However, in the long run, you are going to be much more profitable when betting close to pick ‘em games, backing the team with better guards, better scorers, and more offense. And that’s exactly what NM has. Clemson has also been reeling down the stretch. They lost in their first game of the ACC tournament to non-NCAA tourney team Boston College by 21. It would be one thing if Clemson was playing good basketball at the end of the year, and just had one bad outing against a BC team that got hot, but that’s not the case. Instead, they lost 2 of their last 3 regular season games (3 of their last 4 overall, including the BC loss). Their last loss of the season came against a Wake Forest team that was on a 3-game losing streak going into that game. They also lost at Notre Dame by 7 as a 7.5 point favorite; and that was a Notre Dame team that finished the season 3rd to last in the ACC.
Early in the year, this Clemson team was on a role, starting off 11-1 overall, with their only loss coming by 2 points at Memphis, who at the time was ranked in the top 25 in the country. Since January 1st however, the Tigers are a .500 basketball team. They are the 49th best team in the country according to Torvik. Again, it would be one thing if you looked at this team and they were up and down all year. But that wasn’t the case. They have been playing poorly for a long time now, and it just doesn’t feel like they have some ability to turn it on in the tournament. Not to mention, I think they are the significantly LESS talented group here. New Mexico CLEARLY has the best two guards on the floor, and they might even have the best 3. Clemson has the best big, in Hall, but as I mentioned before, I’ll take guards over bigs in the tourney 7 days a week, and twice on Sunday. Or in our case, once on Friday.
On the other side, New Mexico is coming off their hottest stretch of the season, as they ran through the MW Tourney, winning 4 straight, and covering all 4 games. They were an underdog in two of the games, and they beat 3 tournament teams in that stretch as well. But what was even more impressive was their mental toughness. They have definitely had their lows this season, but they never faltered in this run, despite the fact that they KNEW that they probably were on the outside looking in if they didn’t win the whole tourney. After leading the MW Title game the whole way against SDSU, they blew a double digit lead and actually trailed by 4 late in the ball game. However, they did not panic, and a couple of BIG putbacks from Toppin got them back squared. They came up with some massive stops late, and House put on his superman cape to take over scoring duties in the final 4 minutes, with Toppin operating as Robin to House’s Batman. I’ll also add a little state I loved that I heard from someone earlier this week: New Mexico is 8-0 ATS on a neutral floor this year. This makes me feel even better, considering they are an altitude team.
Overall, I love the Lobos here as the higher seeded favorite. Richard Patino showed me a lot in the MW tourney, being able to prep for teams despite having basically zero practice time and less than a day to prepare. Yes, he now has to face a much less familiar opponent, but he’s also got a full 4 days to prep for this Clemson team. I believe he will come up with a really good plan to attack Clemson’s suspect perimeter defense, and I believe he will develop a good plan to attempt to take Hall’s post ups away. But EVEN if he doesn’t come up with the perfect gameplan, he’s shown to be a great in-game adjuster as well as of late. So I trust Pitino to get it done in this spot. The Lobos have been basically playing NCAA tourney games for the past week, so what’s one more here against a very beatable team who’s been trending down for three months? GIVE ME THE LOBOS. I think they win this one, and I actually think they beat Baylor in round 2. Lobos to the Sweet 16. But all we need is to get them to the round of 32. Try to find a cheap Moneyline (-130 or better) anything more than -130 and go ahead and lay the 2.
OFFICIAL BEST BET #1: New Mexico Lobos -130 (ML) or -2 (-110)
Best Bet #2: 6 Texas Tech Red Raiders -4.5 vs. 11 NC State Wolfpack
We’re going to keep both our best bets for the 1st Round in the 6/11 matchups, and this one is the battle of the red squads. The reincarnation of the Cardiac kids against the Pistols of the Red Raiders. And we’re definitely rolling with the GUNS UP in this one. This is clearly a buy low, sell high spot on these teams. Not that Texas Tech is at a big time low spot, but they are coming off a really bad loss in the Big 12 tournament at the hands of the Houston Cougars. But to be fair to Tech, a lot of teams have got smacked by Houston that exact same way this season. Luckily for the Red Raiders this matchup is much more favorable. They face an NC State team that had to win 5 games in 5 nights in order to even get into the NCAA Tournament. Going into the ACC Tourney, the Wolfpack were just 17-14 overall, with a losing record in the conference (9-11). They were the #10 seed in their conference tournament, and going into the tourney they knew that a loss in any round would mean that they were either headed to the NIT or they were done for the year. Instead, they rattled off 5-consecutive wins to get into the tourney. Now they sit facing the fourth place team from the best conference in the country, and yet we’ve seen the public lean towards the Wolfpack.
Let’s take a look at NC State’s run to the ACC Tournament Title first. The first two games the Wolfpack beat two non-tournament teams in Louisville and Syracuse. The Louisville win you can throw out the window (they’re 8-24), and the Syracuse win isn’t bad. But when you look at the two teams, NC State’s talent level is significantly higher than the Orange. Then comes the quarter-finals where the Wolfpack knocked off the Duke Blue Devils by 5. And while, yes, that looks like a great win on the surface, I’m just not sold on Duke this season. I’ve been down on the ACC as a whole, but especially Duke due to their inability to defend and their significant lack of toughness. NC State was able to exploit that and almost BULLY Duke at times in that game. The last thing you are going to do to Pop Issac and Joe Toussaint is bully them. Then we look at the semi-final game where NC State took on Virginia. With under a minute and a half to play, NC State trailed by 5 when DJ Burns committed an intentional foul. Virginia was shooting 2 free throws, up by 5, with under 1:30 to go in the game. Right there NC State’s season should’ve been over. Instead, Reece Beekman went to the FT line and missed BOTH. Still UVA had the ball up 5 and was able to run the clock down to close to 1:00 before getting fouled again. This time Beekman split a pair to put UVA up 6. On the ensuing possession Ryan Dunn of UVA fouled an NC State shooter on a three, giving NC State a free three points. After a couple back and forths NC State could not knock down a three to tie it, and they were forced to foul with just 6 seconds left. They also fouled the best free throw shooter on the team in Isaac McKneely (88% on the season). Because it was only the 9th team foul, McKneely shot a 1-and-1 and improbably missed the front end, allowing NC State one last chance to tie it. Inexplicably Tony Bennett decided NOT to foul in this situation which probably would’ve ended the game right there. Instead, NC State got up a three at the buzzer. Now, in Bennett’s defense, this shot goes in 1 out of 1,000 times. But still, if you foul there you win 1,000 out of 1,000 times. Somehow, someway Michael O’Connell willed the ball in the basket, calling glass while doing it. The ball not only hit the window, but spun around the rim about 5 times before finally falling in, sending the game to overtime. NC State went on to win in overtime, and went on to upset top seeded North Carolina in the ACC championship (another overrated ACC team), securing their bid to the tournament.
All of that above said, we have an NC State team that went into the ACC tourney just three games above .500. They absolutely do not deserve to be in the NCAA tournament based on how they beat Virginia, and they were not a deserving team in the entire regular season either. So we have a recency bias influencing this line. Secondly, we have a team who had to play 5 games in 5 days in order to just get here. Not only that, but their best player, who is listed at 270 lbs, is likely about 320 lbs. So the wear and tear on his legs in that run was brutal. Meanwhile, although Tech got smashed by Houston, they played only 2 games in their conference tourney, and both were blowouts. So they are going to come into this game much more rested than the Wolfpack. Tech is going to try to speed this game up. They want to play up-tempo, push the pace, and shoot a ton of threes. Tech does have a few injuries to their squad, but these are not new. They’ve been dealing with them for 3+ weeks now, and at this point they’ve been able to figure out how to play with this new lineup.
Overall, this number is just short. Tech on a neutral a week ago would be laying 6.5, maybe even 7, so we’re grabbing some value in this number at 5. If Tech was 100% healthy I think they win this game by 15. With the injuries, I think it’s closer to a 9-10 point win, but I still really like the Red Raiders in this spot. I also think there’s a distinct coaching advantage for Texas Tech which does tend to matter in these type of games early in the tournament. NC State is one of the worst teams in the country defending the three point line (allowing nearly 35% of 3s to be made). Meanwhile that’s all Tech wants to do. So the only way I believe NC State has success defensively is through scheme and gameplanning; however, I don’t believe that this staff is good enough to come up with an effective gameplan. Therefore, give me the Texas Tech Red Raiders here, even though their fans throw bottles at players. And even though they are absolute psychos on Twitter, I’ll be pulling for Tech in round 1. Guns Up
OFFICIAL PICK: Texas Tech -4.5 (-110)
Best Bet #3: Keisei Tominaga (Nebraska) OVER 14.5 Points (-115)
1 UNIT
