Tuley’s Takes – College Basketball Conference Tournament Best Bets:

We love March Madness in the Tuley’s Takes home office, but even moreso with the major conference tournaments leading up to the Big Dance.

As I know you’ve also heard over and over (and over the years) from my VSiN colleagues, we have far more betting opportunities with more than 100 games during this Championship Week while we’ll only have 32 games in the NCAA tourney’s first-round games next Thursday and Friday, and just 16 on that Saturday and Sunday.

I’ve had more success with my “dog or pass” plays over the years in these conference tournaments – usually by fading teams that are already locks for the NCAA Tournament when they’re playing “bubble teams” or even sometimes teams that are even lower seeds in their own conference and whose only shot is to get the automatic bid by winning the postseason tourney.

Now, I know the transfer portal and NIL continue to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, but we’re still confident we can still find live dogs in these spots (though it does make it dicier to play the really big Cinderellas). But we’ll get to that in our conference-by-conference “takes.”

For our purposes here, we’re focusing on the major conferences and not as much as the mid-majors. There are sometimes opportunities there, but even fewer and farther between (for instance, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had the West Coast Conference’s Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara already in his field of 68 and we didn’t see any reason to fade those teams).

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention undefeated Miami (OH) of the Mid-American Conference. The MAC (which I love as a Northern Illinois alum and will continue to follow as the Huskie’s men’s basketball team is staying while the football team moves to the Mountain West next season) is almost always a one-bid league with the regular-season-champ needing to win the league tourney to go dancing, so the RedHawks’ status has been up for debate if they were to lose this week. I don’t feel comfortable fading an undefeated team (even though they haven’t been covering down the stretch), and the only team I would consider is Akron, but the Zips are actually the betting favorite to win the conference tourney, so I’d be passing there as well.

Without further ado, let’s get to the rest of this week’s wall-to-wall basketball action. Good luck and enjoy the madness.

Big 10

Tuley’s Take: The Big 10, or the Big 18 as I derisively call it, as this Midwestern-born-and-raised boy is going to be an old man shaking my fists at the clouds about the overexpansion of the conference I grew up watching. It was bad enough when first Penn State and then Rutgers and Maryland were added, but now it’s barely recognizable with the hated Pac-12 teams (grrrr!!!). Anyway, Lunardi has nine Big 10 teams making the NCAAs, so there aren’t many live underdog longshots. However, I am looking ahead to one potential play if it comes to fruition. Indiana is a “Work to Do” team on ESPN’s “Bubble Watch” and not even on Lunardi’s “First Four Out” or “Next Four Out”, so the Hoosiers need at least a couple of wins. I’ll pass on their Wednesday game vs. Tuesday’s Northwestern-Penn State winner as they’ll be favored, but would take Indiana plus the points vs. Purdue on Thursday or vs. Nebraska on Friday if they make it to the quarterfinals.
Conference tournament best bets: Indiana as dog vs. Purdue on Thursday and beyond.

Big 12

Tuley’s Take: The Big 12 is another misnumbered conference with 16 teams, and Lunardi has half of them (eight) making the NCAA field, so again the pickings are slim. I considered West Virginia if they made it to the quarterfinals vs. Houston, but the Cougars are too well-balanced (one of just three teams ranked Top 10 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency) in my book to fade, plus they routed the Mountaineers 77-48 in their only regular-season meeting, so I’ll sit out this conference except to scout teams for next week.
Conference tournament best bets: Pass.

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Atlantic Coast

Tuley’s Take: With Lunardi projecting the ACC to get eight NCAA bids, there’s also not live dogs/longshots here either (and Stanford was a “Work to Do” team and lost to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, so that’s one less team – unless you want to jump on the Pitt bandwagon as the lowest-seeded team to make the ACC tourney). The one matchup I’m eyeing is if Florida State beats California on Wednesday to earn the right to face No. 1 Duke on Thursday. I wouldn’t be looking to back Cal if it survives as the Golden Bears failed to cover +14.5 in a 71-56 loss to Duke in mid-January, but Florida State did play better against the Blue Devils in a 91-87 spread-covering home loss way back on Jan. 3 as 16.5-point dogs and were 10-3 down the stretch, so the Seminoles are playing better now.

As an aside, I should mention that Marc Lawrence of playbooksports.com points out that underdogs are 31-12-4 ATS (72.1%) in the ACC semifinals since 1998 and 13-2-2 ATS since 2007 when coming off a win of seven or more points, so dogs are usually live in that round. However, it’s very likely only NCAA locks will be around with the way this year’s bracket is set up, so I’ll probably pass but just wanted to pass on that tidbit in case readers are interested.
Conference tournament best bets: Florida State as big dog vs. Duke on Thursday.

Southeastern

Lunardi has the SEC with an NCAA-high 11 teams making the dance, so it’s very hard finding a live longshot here. The locks are Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky, while Missouri and Texas A&M should make the field. The “Work to Do” teams on ESPN’s “Bubble Watch” are Auburn, Texas and Oklahoma, with two of the three projected to make the field, so they’re all in “must-win” spots. All are favored in Wednesday’s first round, so you know I’m not betting any of them there, but I would consider any of them getting points in Thursday’s quarterfinals (against Tennessee, Georgia or Texas A&M in that order. The cream usually rises to the top in the SEC tourney, so I wouldn’t back any of these dogs all the way to the title game, but I could see myself also betting one of these if they made it to the quarterfinal round on Friday.
Conference tournament best bets: Auburn, Texas or Oklahoma as dogs on Thursday and possibly Friday.

Big East

We remember when the Big East used to be among the CBB elite and also be deep with live longshots able to run the table to be bid-stealers. But this year they have three teams that are locks for the NCAA Tournament (St. John’s, UConn and Villanova) and a bunch of also-rans. The only possible play I can see myself making is if a Cinderella team (Seton Hall, the most likely, Creighton or DePaul) somehow makes the final vs. one of the locked-in three.
Conference tournament best bets: Pass for now unless Cinderella reaches final.

Mountain West

Tuley’s Take: The Mountain West is a mid-major, but it’s also traditionally held here in Las Vegas during this week. The disappointing part is that Lunardi projects just two bids with #1 seed Utah State a lock and basically San Diego State, New Mexico and Boise State vying for the second spot – and they’re all on the bottom half of the bracket. However, I am looking ahead to one play if UNLV can beat Wyoming on Wednesday afternoon in an 8-9 matchup and face Utah State on Thursday. We not only love that Utah State is fadeable as a shoo-in to make the dance, but also that the Runnin’ Rebels are often a live dog with the tourney played on their home court at the Thomas & Mack Center. In addition, UNLV won the two regular-season meetings, 86-76 as 15.5-point road underdogs on Jan. 21 and a 92-65 rout as 7-point home dogs just over a week ago on March 4. Anything about +5 will work for me.
Conference tournament best bets: UNLV as dog vs. Utah State on Thursday and beyond.

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