It’s March Madness time and the talent at the top of the Women’s NCAA Tournament field is staggering.
The UConn Huskies finished the season undefeated at 34-0. They played one game all season that didn’t result in a double-digit win and that was in November.
UCLA has been impressive in its own right, with just one loss all season. The Bruins have won 25 games in a row and officially punched their ticket with a 51-point win against an Iowa team that secured a No. 2 seed in the tournament.
Texas and South Carolina, the other two No. 1 seeds in the tournament, have battled all season, including in the SEC title game that Texas won comfortably.
Sportsbooks have the reigning champion Huskies well ahead of the field as the odds-on favorite (-335 at BetRivers) to win back-to-back national championships. As good as Geno Auriemma’s team has been, there is value on the board for a team to knock UConn off its perch.
NCAA Men’s Tournament early prediction, best bets
Attempting to downplay UConn’s run through the regular season and conference tournament is a fool’s errand; their average margin of victory this season was 38 points, and the closest any team came to beating them was a three-point game against Michigan.
That said, win-loss record and margin of victory don’t mean much in the tournament, especially when those wins came against overmatched teams in a weak Big East.
The same could be said for UCLA (+600). The Bruins ran through the Big Ten like a knife through hot butter, but came up short when they had to face an SEC team.
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This doesn’t mean these teams aren’t still great and likely to make the Final Four. It just means we shouldn’t expect them to look as unbeatable as they did all season.
The two No. 1 seeds from the SEC are the most battle tested squads in the field. Texas (+750) beat South Carolina (10/1) twice this season and UCLA, and South Carolina has wins over Texas and LSU.
The Gamecocks are also on the opposite side of the bracket from the Longhorns, so the two would avoid each other until the championship game if they both made it that far.
At the outset of the tournament, UConn should be the favorite, but there’s no value in betting them at their current odds. South Carolina jumps out as a value team with the fourth-best offense and third-best defense in the country per Bart Torvik’s rankings.
They are playing in the weakest region and should make the Final Four. If South Carolina faces UConn, as expected, we’ll see a game between two teams that have battled in the national title game twice in the past four years.
With head coach Dawn Staley at the helm, South Carolina is as balanced, battle-tested, and experienced as any team in the field. I’d gladly grab them at their current odds to win it all.
The Pick: South Carolina (10/1, BetRivers)
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Malik Smith has been immersed in the sports betting industry since 2017. He’s a data nerd with a particular focus on the NBA and combat sports. He spends his weeknights in the winter looking for edges on plus-money NBA player props.
