NCAA Best Bets for Saturday, March 18, 2022

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Through four days in the tournament, we are 11-6-1 on the completed plays. I’ll take that any time. Now we are into the round of 32 and we are ready to keep going with this run. Here are the plays I have circled for Saturday.

Michigan vs. Tennessee

I have one or two brackets floating around in the world right now that have Tennessee making it to the Final Four. I didn’t think Michigan would be Colorado State, but they looked better than they have in their previous few games. I suppose that wasn’t that surprising of a victory (even though I incorrectly picked it). Tennessee, though, should be a much harder game for Michigan. The big reason for me is the defense of Tennessee can be overwhelming. I’m going to take Tennessee at -6 and think they keep rolling in this tourney.

St. Peter’s vs. Murray State

Okay, great. Let’s all take a second to recognize that St. Peter’s beat Kentucky in the opening round. Now that we are past that, let’s get back to reality and say it was a nice story. Kentucky is one of the more overrated teams each year. Every season, Coach Cal gets a boatload of talent and does very little with it. Anyway, Murray State beat a decent team in San Francisco, but they got to the tournament by beating teams like St. Peter’s this entire season. I don’t think this game will be all that close. I’m taking Murray State -9. I could see St. Peter’s making it a game for a while, but Murray State should finish the job with relative ease.

Memphis vs. Gonzaga

I don’t think this will be a struggle of a game for Gonzaga, and I think they win it. I just don’t know that it will be by 10 points. They didn’t look very sharp in their opener and that was against a team with far less talent than Memphis has. Yes, ultimately they pulled away and won by 21 points, but that first half was brutal. Memphis should be able to stay within striking distance. If it is a seven or eight-point game late, we won’t need to worry about free throws either. I’ll take the points here. Memphis +10.5 at -110.

Totals

Here are the totals I’ll play and the number I would play to, if any.

Creighton/Kansas over 139.5
St. Mary’s/UCLA under 126
Michigan/Tennessee under 136.5

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