2024 March Madness: Here’s what Region, National Championship market data tells us about potential outcomes

Data is one of the most important and useful tools in projecting the NCAA Tournament. Whether that means choosing a team to bet on to win a regional, or deciding between who will come out of a region for your bracket, data can point us in the right direction (or wrongly if misinterpreted). And a huge data point that has become more prevalent in the past decade or so is betting odds, which allow sharp bettors to shape a market.

They’re everywhere and readily available to the general public. This was always the case in the past, but not always used as a starting point for deciphering certain trends that can help us make decisions when picking the tournament.

When we say picking, we mean brackets, bets, and even the field by the NCAA Selection Committee… as they might have some regrets about Virginia.

So we’ve taken the average odds of every team to win each region and the National Championship. With that we’ll be able to determine, in the eyes of the sports betting market holistically, which of the four regions are the toughest and weakest based on average future prices for all teams.

Here’s what we gathered. You can find the table with everything below.

Regional odds

What does it tell us?

Midwest

Let’s start with the Midwest Region, because that’s easily the one being talked about the most. Kansas Jayhawks guard Kevin McCullar Jr. was ruled out for the entirety of March Madness by head coach Bill Self on Tuesday evening. As a result, Kansas’ odds to come out of the region have fallen to +1500. We’ll separate teams with +1000 or better odds to win a region as “true contenders” and the rest of the field as less likely. With Kansas (somewhat) out of the picture, we see No. 1 seed Purdue Boilermakers as the favorite to make the Final Four.

Before the bracket was revealed if you asked the public, media, etc who is the most likely No. 1 seed to lose first? That answer was almost always Purdue. We’ve seen very good regular-season Purdue teams get upset in miserable fashion early in the tourney. Last season the Boilermakers lost to 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson, just the second time in history a 16-seed has won. In 2022 Purdue advanced to the Sweet 16, only to lose to 15-seed Cinderella St. Peter’s. In 2021? No. 4 Purdue falls in the first round to 13-seed North Texas.

In almost 20 years of coaching the Boilermakers, head coach Matt Painter has never advanced to the Final Four. The closest was in 2019, when No. 3 seed Purdue fell in the Elite Eight to eventual National Champion Virginia.

Might this be the season Painter and the Boilermakers exorcise the demons and make it to Phoenix? The region is setting them up for what appears to be an easy path based on market data. Kansas is down arguably its best player. Gonzaga would be a test in the Sweet 16, but this is the weakest ‘Zags team since 2016. Purdue also beat the Bulldogs by 10 earlier in the season.

On the other side, you’ve got Tennessee and Rick Barnes in his 36th season as a D1 head coach. Not much else we need to say there. The Creighton Bluejays appear to be the biggest competition for Purdue if it comes to that in the Elite Eight. So unless the Boilermakers blow it again (sorry), it feels like the floor could be the Regional Final.

South

We’ll move along to the toughest region. This South has the most teams (8) with odds +2000 or better to advance to the Final Four, while no other region has more than six. Not that Florida, Texas Tech and Nebraska have much of a shot at the Final Four, but it tells us those teams are tougher in their seed than other seeds in other regions. One thing that sticks out when looking at regional odds for the South is the separation between Houston (the favorite at +140) and the team with the second-best odds Marquette (+550). That is the biggest discrepancy between No. 1 and No. 2 of all regions.

What that tells us is it’s Houston and everyone else. While getting to the Elite Eight may be a struggle for the rest of the region, the markets believe the Cougars will be the most likely to just take care of business. Based on odds, Wisconsin (+1500) is the second-weakest 5-seed and could be upset. That leaves the Duke Blue Devils as the big hurdle for Houston in the Sweet 16. The path to beating Houston is either being at home or having a defense that can match theirs. The closest team would be No. 2 seed Marquette, but even then the market says that also shouldn’t be too much of a task.

East

The narrative coming out of Selection Sunday was that the defending champion UConn Huskies got hosed with this region. Not only are two Final Four teams (including the runner-up) from last season in the East (FAU, San Diego State), but also three power conference champions — Auburn, Illinois and Iowa State. But if we look closer, the region isn’t as difficult as it appears. That’s mostly because it’s top-heavy, as the committee threw a lot of the worst lower seeds into this side of the bracket.

Washington State, Drake and Northwestern are considered weak for their slots. Florida Atlantic, despite making that Final Four run last season, is not being viewed as much of a threat this time around with +4000 odds to return. Duquesne is far and away the worst 11-seed in the field. My biggest takeaway from the East region and the odds is that it could be extremely chalky outside of a potential UAB upset over San Diego State (in a game that might have 847 fouls called).

So while the Huskies may have to deal with tough opponents in Auburn and Iowa State/Illinois to return to the Final Four, you could argue that it would be just as difficult in the Midwest going up against No. 3 Creighton (who beat UConn this season) and No. 2 Tennessee based on the regional odds. Let’s also remember Iowa State can be allergic to offense at times; and scoring is a still the most important metric for teams advancing to the Final Four. So if it’s just Auburn in the way of UConn, maybe the region isn’t as stacked as it appears.

West

The West isn’t really doing anything for anyone outside of the potential for Arizona’s Caleb Love playing his former team in North Carolina in the Elite Eight. Joking aside, the West region actually appears tougher than the East by a smidge. It’s very even top-to-bottom based on the odds. We’re going to start with a team in the Mountain West that is very clearly being overlooked by the casuals: The New Mexico Lobos.

Looking at all the data, the Lobos appear to have one of the most egregious seedings from the committee this season. New Mexico’s odds to win the region are +2200 as an 11-seed. Oregon won the Pac-12 conference championship, but has +7000 odds to win the Midwest region, which we’ve already deemed weaker. Duquesne is another conference tournament winner, and sits at +10000 to come out of the East. And the NC State Wolfpack, another bid stealer after winning the ACC tournament, comes in at +5500 to win the South region.

Why is New Mexico such a big outlier here? What are we missing? Did the committee screw the seeding up this bad? Or is Vegas somehow wrong? Am I taking crazy pills? Perhaps. Wait, Vegas is never wrong.

If these odds tell us anything it’s that New Mexico may be the Cinderella of the entire tournament. Going to our trusty friend KenPom, the Lobos rank 22nd overall and are top-50 in both offense and defense. They play at a very fast pace and take care of the ball. Also an interesting stat is they force turnovers but not through steals, but by forcing the other team to make mistakes (throw the ball away, shot clock violation, etc). New Mexico lost six of their final 10 regular-season games before running the table in a fantastic Mountain West tournament.

Worth mentioning is the Lobos’ head coach: Richard Pitino, son of St. John’s coach Rick Pitino. Richard has studied under not only his dad that won two national titles, but former Florida Gators HC Billy Donovan who has won two national titles. We’re getting a bit off topic with this whole New Mexico thing, but look out for the Lobos.

North Carolina and Arizona are the closest 1-2 seeds in terms of odds to win the region. But the West is the only region where the No. 1 seed isn’t favored to come out. The Wildcats are +200 and UNC is +260. Is this a mistake? Let’s examine.

Aside from Auburn, Arizona is the closest to hitting both the top-10 in offense and defense on KenPom. Those metrics usually translate to a potential National Champion/Final Four team. It likely has a lot to do with why Arizona is favored in the West. What one would scream from there is “conference!” Yes, the Pac-12 is weak. Yes, the Wildcats lost five Pac-12 games and fell early in the tournament to Oregon. But Arizona also has perhaps the best non-conference resume in the country with wins over Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Alabama.

For North Carolina, it almost feels like they’re going overlooked. Last season’s expectations were high and the Tar Heels missed the tourney. That, after the team nearly won the National title as an 8-seed. RJ Davis and Armando Bacot are back. They were on that 8-seed Cinderella team in 2022. Had UNC won the ACC tournament final over NC State, they’d be on a nine-game winning streak, and likely favored over Arizona in this region. For betting purposes alone, UNC has good value to come out of this side of the bracket. No. 3 Baylor and No. 4 Alabama also make up the two weakest 3-4 combos of any region based on odds.

National Championship odds

What does it tell us?

For the sake of time, we’ll not break this down by region. Rather than looking at the average of all the teams’ odds to win the National Championship out of each region, we took the top-10. It really only eliminates maybe a few teams with a very, very slim chance, but gives us a better picture of the top contenders in each region. Mainly because the Midwest has the best collective National Championship odds at +61,581.25 (which we know, is a very ugly number). After adding up the top-10 odds for each region and averaging that out, we get this:

South — +7225
West — +7650
East — +8556
Midwest — +9030

Now that’s better. As you can see, the top-10 teams in the South make up the most competitive group in the tournament. The West is a close second, followed by the East and Midwest. This furthers the sentiment that the East is top-heavy. Even when we take the top-10 teams out there, we don’t get them to the top. Based on odds, the South remains the most competitive. So we can interpret that in, expect there to be some upsets in that region. Also don’t be surprised if a lower seed gets through to the Sweet 16 or even Elite Eight.

Same goes for the West. Things should be competitive and we should see some upsets from that side. For me, the Midwest and East feel like they could be the most chalk in the tournament, particularly the East. At least until we get through the first weekend. After that, all bets are off. Remember, the McCullar injury for Kansas is big. Purdue and Creighton in the Midwest and we always fade Tennessee.

UConn, Iowa State and Auburn feel like the strong picks in the East. Arizona and UNC in the West, while Houston and Kentucky make the most sense in the South. If you pick from that pool of teams to construct your bracket(s) this March, chances are you’re going to come close to what the Final Four will end up being. It’s always difficult to project for mid-and-lower seeds making a deep run. We’re not fortune tellers here, so we’re merely using what the data tells us.

Happy March Madness and good luck!