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The college basketball betting season has reached its midway point, and now talk of March Madness can finally start up. After the first 20 games of the season, things are seemingly the way they should be, as the strongest teams of the Power Six Conferences are atop the AP 25 standings. The biggest shock thus far in the year, is top ranked Syracuse sitting at 20 wins and no losses. We’ve always known that Syracuse has been a good price per head wager, but to go undefeated through the first 20 games is a bit surprising. Today, we’ll look at which team has the best shot at a March Madness title.

March Madness, like the playoffs in the big four major sports, is a time of year, in which literally anything can happen. As we saw in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs, the Denver Broncos and New York Giants were just as deserving of their playoff spots as the Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers. While it could be suggested that the Broncos dream season was destined to come to an abrupt halt, the New York Giants appear to be the real deal. As it relates to the March Madness tournament, usually one team pulls a Broncos and squeaks into the tournament then overachieves, while another hits their stride right as the bookie software tournament gets under way.

With that in mind, two teams of particular interest to us in the March Madness Tournament will be the Michigan Wolverines and the Michigan State Spartans. For all intents and purposes, we’ll call the Spartans our Denver Broncos, and the Wolverines our New York Giants. That is to say, the Spartans who currently sit 23^rd in the NCAA rankings, are a team that appears to be overachieving. They don’t have one specific star, but their program has been good enough to maintain a high ranking. On the other side of things, Tim Hardaway Jr. who like Eli Manning, has carried his team this season leads the Wolverines.

When looking at both teams, it really depends which of our colleagues you want to agree with, for who should fair better. Firstly, colleagues from Sports Illustrated have the Spartans as a final four pick, with the Wolverines coming in as a dark horse pick if the Spartans should flop. Conversely, at a couple other colleagues early projections, they have the Wolverines and Spartans swapping positions.

In our opinion, the final four will be Ohio State, Kansas, Syracuse and Michigan. Michigan will go head to head with the nation’s best team in Syracuse, while Ohio State will take on Kansas. For Michigan, facing Syracuse in the final four will be eerily similar to facing Duke a season ago, in that many will expect them to be destroyed, but they will take the Orange to the limit. As we noted earlier, Tim Hardaway Jr. who is a freshman and a game changer for the club leads Michigan. For that reason, we really believe Hardaway Jr. can be the difference between losing to Syracuse and pulling off a mammoth of an upset, before beating Kansas for the National Title.

It has to be one of the most ridiculous contradictions in sports betting, yet it happens every year when it comes to college basketbal. Perhaps it is the fact that in college football a team has to go undefeated or close to it just to have a chance at a national title, but it seems somewhat absurd that the same standard is applied to college basketball teams early on in the year. The No. 3 North Carolina Tar Heels are the perfect example of this college basketball betting contradiction, as the consensus preseason No. 1 has faded in the shadow of the undefeated and top-ranked Syracuse Orange. There is no denying that Syracuse has been the best team in the country early on and deserves the accolades that it receives, but to consider the Tar Heels to be an inferior team in terms of matching the two against one another based solely on their records seems to be a ridiculous proposition.

There is no denying that at the time the stumble was a notable one, as the Tar Heels dropped a decision at UNLV by 10 points, and then lost at then-No. 1 Kentucky two games later. But losing two of three early on is no reason to doubt the long-term capabilities of a team, especially considering that North Carolina nearly came out with a win on the road against a talented team in Kentucky. The Tar Heels have followed that loss up with nine straight wins to remain at No. 3, and with two wins to open up their ACC schedule it will still be a little while before they get the chance to entertain the No. 6 Duke Blue Devils in their first meeting of the season. The pay head odds say that the North Carolina and Duke are the top two teams in the conference, and with no other team ranked higher than 17 at this point, the Blue Devils could be the only obstacle in the way of Harrison Barnes and company on their way to an ACC Championship.

Barnes and the other veterans on the team are the biggest reason to believe in the Tar Heels, as the experience and talent they have is unrivalled heading in to this year not Justin the ACC, but in the entire country. The sophomore Barnes is joined by junior John Henson and senior Tyler Zeller as three scorers averaging double-digit point totals, and as the season continues the chemistry that they continue to build will become a crucial advantage they hold over opponents. North Carolina ranks first in scoring, first in rebounding, and third in assists per game in the entire country, and to be so strong in so many areas is testament to how talented they truly are. The Tar Heels don’t just want to bring home an ACC Championship, they want to bring home a national title, and there is no doubt that they have the weapons to reach their goals. The sportsbook review sites should have North Carolina as a team that can really make some noise this year, so pay attention to their nightly lines.

Sports Betting Overview

Any team that uses injuries as an excuse for poor play needs to look at the Pittsburgh Penguins over the last two seasons. Last season, the Penguins lost superstar Sidney Crosby in January for the rest of the season. But the team plodded forward and was still one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. Then the Penguins lost superstar Evgeni Malkin a month before the playoffs last season and still wound up competing well in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now the Penguins face the very real possibility that it will have to move forward withoutCrosbypermanently. But yet the Penguins keep winning and keep playing great hockey.

The changes that the New York Rangers made in the off-season, especially the addition of Brad Richards, look like they are paying off. The pay per head sportsbook experts were not sure what to expect from the Rangers when the season started because it can sometimes take new players time to gel with existing players. But the chemistry on this Rangers’ team is so deep that the new players fit right in and the existing players kept right on going. It is starting to look like the New York Rangers made the best moves in the off-season free agency market.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Despite its current two-game losing streak, the Penguins remain one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. The bookie software shows that the Penguins have 46 points and trail the conference leading Rangers by only six points. Every game the Penguins play against the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers this season is extremely important to the Penguins’ chances of making the playoffs. The Penguins are a solid balance of goal scoring and solid defense, but the most notable part of the Penguins’ game is their tenacity. The Penguins score goals by never giving up on a play and grinding until the puck is in the net. That is what will make this a great hockey game.

New York Rangers

Rangers’ goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is having another banner season as the Rangers have only given up 79 goals in 37 games played. A 5 dimes review of the Rangers’ season last year compared to this year is that the team is scoring goals this season. The games that the Rangers were losing 1-0 and 2-1 last year have turned into wins because of the additional scoring punch the team has. The Rangers’ consistency and goal-scoring ability will make them very dangerous in the playoffs. In this game, it will be the Rangers’ ability to play in both ends of the ice that will grab the victory.

The Bottom Line

NHL fans inPittsburgh can only wonder how much better the Penguins would be if Sidney Crosby could play. But it looks like the Penguins will have to go at it without the team captain once again this season. In this game, the lack ofCrosby’s scoring threat will be the difference in the game.

Pick: New York Rangers

While they aren’t the only undefeated team remaining in the country, 14 straight wins including a nine-point victory over the Texas A&M Aggies in their Big 12 opener has the Baylor Bears stealing the spotlight as we welcome the new sports betting year. Coming off of a big win overMississippiState inDallas, the Bears had little trouble with an Aggies’ team that had won nine of their 13 games this season, with Perry Jones III once again stepping up to contribute 14 points and 12 rebounds in their first game since climbing two spots to no. 4 in the national rankings. Looking ahead to the next couple of weeks on the Baylor schedule, and it won’t get any easier for Jones and company with four of their next five against nationally ranked opponents, including No. 7 Missouri and No. 14 Kansas. That stretch will be a real test of just where this team belongs early on, and if the Bears’ early season play is any indication, the answer to that is right near the top.

A lot of the attention has been on Baylor and their improbable rise the past couple of weeks, college basketball betting fans that have stayed with the Syracuse Orange in spite of everything that they have gone through have been rewarded with some incredible results. TheOrange are still at the top of the national rankings with a perfect record, even though just one of their 15 wins has come against a ranked opponent.Syracuse improved to 2-0 in the Big East with victories against Seton Hall and DePaul, and while they faceMarquette coming up this weekend, they still have some time before they take on the true heavyweights in the conference, including one-lossConnecticut andGeorgetown. Both of those teams are in the top-10, and should provide a better test of where head coach Jim Boeheim’s team is.

The pay head bookies will take note that the Orange weren’t the only team that received a first place vote this past week, as the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats received one, and moved up to the second spot in the national rankings following a seven-point win over the fourth-ranked Louisville Cardinals. ShouldSyracuse follow with their tough schedule ahead, the Wildcats should be right there to pounce on the top spot given that they don’t play another game against a ranked opponent until February. The Cardinals slipped down to No. 11 with the loss, allowing the North Carolina Tar Heels to climb all the way up to three, with the Duke Blue Devils rounding out the top-five at No. 5.

There is still a long way to go before anything is determined for this year’s conferences, but for the most part the strong play from teams such as Syracuseand Baylor are strong indications for future success. Playing either team on betonline right now should be a good play, but don’t get too carried away once they get to the toughest parts of their schedules.