NCAA Tournament Survivor Guide for the Elite 8 (Tuesday)
With just one set of games remaining until the Final Four, the end of your NCAA survivor pools is near. By now, you are down to just a handful of teams left to choose from, so hopefully, you have navigated a path that allows you to make it to the national championship game. If you have not and face a dead end with not having any teams left to choose from after this round, your strategy should shift to simply outlasting all your competitors.
Those varying strategies are on full display with Tuesday’s window of games. If you have both Gonzaga and Michigan available, save whatever team you think is more likely to reach the national championship game and use the other. We discuss our thoughts on that specific plan in this column.
As we have done since the Round of 32, we rank all games in order of most confidence to least confidence and provide a short narrative for each.
Here is a list of odds for all the favorites to win their Elite 8 matchups on Tuesday (odds courtesy of BettingPros consensus).
Best Picks in Order of Most-to-Least Confidence
Michigan -375
From a strictly seeding perspective, the Michigan Wolverines caught a break by facing the No. 11 seed UCLA Bruins for the right to advance to the Final Four, as opposed to the No. 2 seed Alabama Crimson Tide. However, the Bruins have followed the same narrative as the 2011 VCU Rams, as a First Four team on a path to the Final Four.
Many are surprised to see Michigan in the Elite 8 after losing Isaiah Livers to an injury. Oddsmakers even suggested there was a good chance the Wolverines would be upset along the way, as they were four-point favorites against LSU and two-point favorites against Florida State. However, Michigan turned in two consecutive dominant performances in those games, covering the spread by an average of 10.0 PPG. The Wolverines “small ball†lineup with Franz Wagner at the four is a nightmare to match up with but is also menacing defensively. Michigan has allowed 67.3 PPG in their three tournament games thus far, and UCLA does not have enough frontcourt depth to deal with Hunter Dickinson all game.
Look for the Wolverines to advance and for Juwan Howard to celebrate a Final Four berth as a coach like he did two times before as a player.
Gonzaga -400
The Gonzaga Bulldogs are nine-point favorites against the USC Trojans. If that number remains the same by tip-off, it will be just the fifth time all year they have been a single-digit favorite, and first since December 26th. In their previous four games as single-digit favorites, the Bulldogs are 3-1 ATS and have won those games by an average of 12.8 PPG.
USC may give Gonzaga trouble early on with the length of their 2-3 zone. However, Gonzaga’s offense is different from the Drake, Kansas, and Oregon offenses that the Trojans have faced thus far. Gonzaga saw a steady diet of zone from the WCC teams that could not match up man-to-man with them. While none of them have the length as USC has with the 6’10†or taller Mobley brothers, Gonzaga moves the ball quickly and crisply and will find plenty of good looks in this game.
The Bulldogs may not be a national championship lock just yet, but this is not the game where they fall.
Find out our best bets for Tuesday’s Elite 8 matchups >>
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.