We’re heading into the second day of the 2024 NCAA Tournament and your bracket is probably already in shambles. We had a few big upsets with No. 11 Duquesne knocking off No. 6 BYU and No. 14 Oakland taking down No. 3 Kentucky on Thursday. There was also a massive comeback from No. 7 Dayton over No. 10 Nevada in the West Region.
Some betting sides we were very right about. It seems No. 11 Oregon was being taking by the entire world. The Ducks entered the tournament hot and took care of No. 6 South Carolina with relative ease. While the No. 4 Kansas Jayhawks held on, No. 13 Samford gave them a late run for their money in a 93-89 win. Samford ended up covering the spread with a 51-point second half.
So now that we’ve seen some teams play and we know a handful of matchups for Saturday, we’re going to go over each game on Thursday and what the biggest takeaway was for betting purposes.
2024 March Madness betting trends
Day 1 takeaways
UNC might not be the weakest No. 1 seed
The Tar Heels were always going to take care of business vs. Wagner but you never know. Hubby Davis’ group smashed Wagner in a 90-62 win. Armando Bacot was all over the glass, which isn’t surprising against a school like Wagner. But this is what you want to see out of your No. 1 seed in the first round. It’s what we’re used to seeing in tournaments about 10-15 years ago. Now, things have changed drastically.
No. 9 Michigan State and Tom Izzo will be a bigger test. If we look at that opening line, it feels off at UNC -4. People are overvaluing the Spartans a bit and if you watched their first-round game, you know Mississippi State isn’t very good. The Bulldogs’ offense looked lost and it wasn’t because Michigan State is some defensive stalwart. Bacot and RJ Davis is going to be a whole different animal in the second round. My early lean is UNC -4.
There’s no need to worry about No. 2 Arizona
Sure, the Wildcats got off to a slow start vs. No. 15 Long Beach State. But they’d go on to defeat The Beach 85-65 in the first round on Thursday. That first half gave us some concern but it was good to see the Wildcats rebound in the second half and put the clamps down. Now, those first-round jitters are out of the way and Arizona can focus on being one of the most complete teams in the nation.
A 20-point win and 85 points in what would be viewed as an awful offensive performance can be viewed as good or bad. It could mean the Wildcats are going to be lethal once they start clicking. Arizona shot 42/37/71 as a team vs. LBST. That can’t be the case against a No. 7 Dayton team that stormed back to get to Saturday in a comeback over No. 10 Nevada. Look for a faster start from Arizona in the second round. The first half spread feels like a good play at -5.5.
No. 2 Iowa State needs to get to the line
The biggest takeaway from the Cyclones relatively easy win over No. 16 South Dakota State is ISU only got to the line eight times. Is that because the offense was playing well? Perhaps. Iowa State shot almost 58% from the floor and went 11-23 from distance in the win. But this is a trend from the entire season for the Cyclones. They don’t really get to the line that often and that could play a big factor at some point in the tournament. I’m not saying it rears it’s ugly head in the second round vs. No. 7 Washington State. But the Cougars got to the line 22 times vs. Drake in their win. That ended up being the difference in a close game. Really, the Cyclones just need to continue to put the clamps down on defense. It will be interesting once we get into the later rounds if ISU advances. Against an elite offense team like Illinois, Auburn or UConn, will Iowa State be able to manufacture enough offense to keep up?
Not much we can gather from Vols stomping Peacocks
This was always going to be the case. That wasn’t the same St. Peter’s team from a few seasons ago in case anyone was wondering now. No. 2 Tennessee was always going to roll to a win in the first round. So there’s not much we can gather outside of it being a good tune-up or setting the Vols up for disaster against a good No. 7 Texas squad. It’s good Tennessee did take care of business in a convincing win from the get-go. Missing seven free throws isn’t great, though two were from bench players. The Vols also turned the ball over 15 times.
Same deal with Creighton
The No. 3 Bluejays rolled No. 14 Akron in their first-round matchup. One thing to potentially take advantage of in the player props market if you can find it is the tight rotation Greg McDermott rolls out there. Even in a 17-point win, Creighton played just about five players and the Big 3 of Trey Alexander, Baylor Scheierman and Ryan Kalkbrenner played almost the ENTIRE game. We’ll see how much that impacts that playing on short rest the entire tournament. It isn’t anything they aren’t used to; all three averaged over 34 minutes per game this season.
With the tight rotation, it will be interesting to see if this forces head coaches to adjust their own rotations to match. Dana Altman and the No. 11 Oregon Ducks use a similar approach. So we should see the best players on the court for almost the entire second-round matchup.
Illinois team total may be the way to go
The Illini had a pretty easy time with No. 14 Morehead State in the first round. Illinois just has too much talent and experience at this point. Now, in the second round, instead of facing No. 6 BYU, the Illini get No. 11 Duquesne. The Cougars could never play defense and that was ultimately their downfall. While the Dukes are good defensively, I think Illinois will be too much for them. The Illinois team total is very high at 79.5 points but we should see another high-scoring performance given the talent gap between these two teams. We’ll have to reassess if we hit the Sweet 16 and it’s No. 3 Illinois vs. No. 2 Iowa State.
Grab Jack Gohlke’s 3-point prop anywhere you can
The No. 14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies pulled off the biggest upset of the Thursday vs. Kentucky thanks to a historic performance by guard Jack Gohkle, who hit 10 3-pointers and finished with 32 points. During the regular season, Gohlke averaged just 3.7 treys per contest. So we can expect the prop line to be either O/U 4.5 or 5.5 3PM. If you can find that line, it feels very good going into the second round vs. No. 11 NC State. The Wolfpack did not do a great job during the regular season defending the 3-point line. Even if they know what’s coming at them, Gohlke was making some circus shots against Kentucky. So I think no matter what the line is, Gohlke’s 3-point prop will look good.
Same thing with Hunter Dickinson rebounding props
No. 4 Kansas held on to defeat a feisty No. 13 Samford squad on Thursday night. Up 10 at halftime, Samford scored 51 points in the second half to cover and lose by four. Without Kevin McCullar Jr. it’s tough to trust Kansas going deep into this tournament. But one thing we do know is Dickinson will need to play a ton of minutes and will absolutely eat on the glass. He finished with 19 points, 20 rebounds and five assists in the win. We were on the Pts + Rebs + Asts over 35 line for his prop in Round 1. Dickinson has another size advantage over No. 5 Gonzaga in the second round.
Speaking of Gonzaga …
The Bulldogs just out-basketball’d what was assumed to be a good No. 12 McNeese squad on Thursday. From the start, you could tell Gonzaga was just way more prepared than the Cowboys. That isn’t all that surprising. Mark Few rarely loses in the first round. The Bulldogs had 22 assists on 31 field goals in the win. And now faces a Kansas team without its best guard and having nearly blown a big lead to Samford, which scored 89 points. Maybe we overlooked the ‘Zags a bit going into the tournament? They had a rough regular season but were still up there on KenPom. Gonzaga 1H spread of -1.5 feels like a very, very safe play.
BYU sucks
Chances are you backed the Cougars in the first round (and if you were dumb enough, had them going to the Sweet 16 in some brackets). Anyway, BYU didn’t play a lick of D and now we get No. 11 Duquesne in the second round vs. Illinois. This feels sort of like a gift. The Illini should roll in this contest, though the game spread feels pretty high for a second-round matchup at -10. I think you bet the 1H spread at Illinois -5.5 and see if there’s a good in-game number on the game spread if you want. But I fully expect Illinois to roll the Dukes in this game. Defense can work against a one-trick pony like BYU. But against NBA-level athletes in Terrence Shannon and Coleman Hawkins, no way.
The Ducks are legit
Circle Oregon vs. Creighton on the schedule for Saturday because this should be a very, very entertaining basketball game. My knee-jerk reaction is hit the over. The line is at 146 and that feels low. Creighton gave up 60 points playing its starters all game against a bad Akron offense. The Ducks scored 87 on South Carolina and Jermaine Couisnard dropped 40. We’re going to see about eight of the best players on Creighton and Oregon play almost the entire game. It’s just going to be an offensive clinic. I don’t buy the public betting the under.
Can NC State contain Gohlke?
The Wolfpack kept its dream run going with a win over No. 6 Texas Tech in the first round. Tech was never very good and NC State had all the momentum in the world. If there’s one thing to take away, it’s that the Wolfpack should be able to contain Gohlke better than Kentucky did. That doesn’t mean the Oakland guard won’t get plenty of shots up. But Pop Isaacs and Joe Toussaint shot a combined 2-17 from 3-point range for the Red Raiders in the loss to NC State. Neither is the shooter Gohlke is but that’s a stat worth noting. Overall, Texas Tech shot 23% from distance, so NC State did a good job there. That will be the matchup to monitor on Saturday.
Dayton comeback just a mirage?
This game felt more like a Nevada collapse than a Flyers comeback. Dayton was able to pick up a 63-60 comeback win over the Wolf Pack. Nevada shot the ball poorly and didn’t get to the line. Meanwhile, Dayton had the best player on the court in DaRon Holmes II. Nevada had some incredibly long scoring droughts in the second half and it wasn’t because Dayton played great defensively. The Flyers had Holmes, who could get to the line, and shot well from the charity stripe. They also made up for some missed shots in the first half and Nevada went absolutely cold. I think there’s a very real scenario in which Arizona runs the Flyers out of the gym on Saturday.
We should be somewhat worried about Texas
Similar to the above game, were the Longhorns good on defense or did Colorado State just suck on offense? It feels like the latter is more true and the Virginia suck just rubbed off on the Rams. The Longhorns were up 27-11 at halftime and if Colorado State doesn’t finish with 29/25/67 shooting splits, the Rams maybe even win. Texas going 1-14 from the 3-point line is #notgood. We do know Colorado State entered as a solid defensive team. So maybe it was just that? Texas is super talented but facing Tennessee will be a tall task. The Vols also have an even better defense than the Rams. I’m sort of walking back my Texas +6.5 first take. If the Longhorns are going to suck on offense again, the under on their team total of 70.5 points could be the way to go.
Drake chokes again
Last season, Drake was in position to knock off No. 5 Miami in the first round. Then the game got tight late and the Bulldogs choked the game away. We saw almost the same win probability chart happen again in the first round for Drake vs. Washington State on Thursday. Up 59-58 with about two minutes to do, Drake fell apart and the Cougars won 66-61. Washington State didn’t shoot the ball well from the floor and most of its production was from two players — Isaac Jones and Jaylen Wells. If Iowa State can shut one of them down (they can probably shut both down), then the Cougars team total under 60.5 points is the lean.
Is it another Sparty Party?
Initial feelings are no. But only because Mississippi State played some of the worst basketball I’ve ever seen on Thursday afternoon. Michigan State looked good but if you ask Tom Izzo how the team played, he’d probably be more critical. The Spartans still turned the ball over 15 times and only got to the stripe six times. That was mostly because it was easy to get buckets against what we thought was a good Bulldogs defense. But Miss State was just so one-dimensional on offense and did a bad job moving the ball.
That won’t be the case for North Carolina. The Tar Heels are going to be a handful for Michigan State. Mississippi State was very soft on the glass. Armando Bacot is not soft on the glass. I think UNC ultimately pulls away and covers -4 on the spread. Michigan State +2 on the 1H spread isn’t a bad way to bet the Spartans.
