College Basketball crowned a new champion on April 4 as the Kansas Jayhawks cut down the nets. Bill Self’s squad owned +1800 odds to win the NCAA title at the conclusion of the previous season. Looking ahead to March Madness 2023, Kansas was one of three favorites – along with Arkansas and Duke – on April 5.
Here are March Madness odds for next season as well as betting insight on top college basketball teams.
March Madness odds 2023: College Basketball Futures
Check out March Madness odds below.
|
Below we will look at how March Madness odds change over the course of a year. Here are what odds to win the 2023 college basketball National Title looked like on April 5, 2022 at FanDuel Sportsbook.
- Kansas +1300
- Arkansas +1300
- Duke +1300
- Houston +1400
- UCLA +1400
- Kentucky +1500
- North Carolina +1500
- Baylor +1500
- Arizona +1600
- Gonzaga +1700
- Texas +3000
- Michigan +3000
- Villanova +3000
- Alabama +3000
- Tennessee +3000
- Oregon +4000
- Creighton +4000
- Michigan State +5000
- Texas +5000
- Illinois +5000
- Purdue +5000
- Auburn +5000
- Florida State +7000
- Virginia +7000
- Ohio State +7000
- TCU +7000
- USC +7000
- Colorado State +800
- Notre Dame +8000
- San Diego State +8000
Last season’s March Madness bracket
Check out our March Madness bracket below, with game lines for each contest as the tournament plays out.
NCAA Basketball National Title odds
Odds to win college basketball’s National Title in 2022. Click on the March Madness odds you like to bet now.
View more March Madness odds at DraftKings, FanDuel Sportsbook and BetMGM.
How College Basketball National Title odds are changing
Odds to win the college basketball National Title have been posted at sportsbooks since the conclusion of last year’s tournament. Here is what the NCAA men’s hoops odds board initially looked like in April of last year.
- Gonzaga +550
- Baylor +850
- UCLA +1200
- Michigan +1400
- Duke +1500
- Kansas +1800
- Kentucky +1800
- Florida State +1800
- Illinois +2000
- Houston +2000
- Ohio State +2200
- Villanova +2200
- Alabama +2500
- North Carolina +2800
- Arkansas +2800
Here is what College Basketball National Title odds looked like on March 11 of this year.
- Gonzaga +350
- Arizona +650
- Kentucky +700
- Auburn +1200
- Baylor +1200
- Duke +1200
- Purdue +1400
- Kansas +1400
- Villanova +2500
- Texas Tech +2500
- UCLA +3000
- Illinois +3500
- Tennessee +3500
- Houston +4000
- Arkansas +5000
- Wisconsin +5000
- Iowa +6000
- Alabama +6000
- UConn +7000
- Texas +7000
Here are what college basketball National Championship odds looked like the morning of March 17, just ahead of the start of the NCAA tournament.
- Gonzaga +300
- Arizona +500
- Kansas +850
- Kentucky +850
- Auburn +1200
- Baylor +1200
- Duke +1600
- Villanova +1600
- Tennessee +1600
- UCLA +1800
- Purdue +2000
- Texas Tech +2200
- Iowa +2200
- Houston +2800
Here are what NCAA men’s basketball National Title odds looked like on the morning of Monday, March 21 – ahead of the Sweet 16.
- Gonzaga +200
- Kansas +400
- Arizona +550
- Purdue +850
- Houston +1000
- Texas Tech +1200
- UCLA +1300
- Villanova +1400
- Duke +1500
- North Carolina +2200
- Michigan +6000
- Arkansas +6000
- Providence +7000
- Miami +8000
- Iowa State +10000
- Saint Peter’s +25000
And here are what NCAA basketball National Title odds looked like on Monday, March 28 – ahead of the Final Four.
- Duke +155
- Kansas +185
- Villanova +450
- North Carolina +500
Updated college hoops betting analysis
TheLines will be delivering live betting updates below, throughout the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
NCAA Tournament Regional Breakdown
West
View a history of the West region
San Francisco (March 24 and 26)
South
View a history of the South Region
San Antonio (March 24 and 26)
East
View a history of the East Region
Philadelphia (March 25 and 27)
Midwest
View a history of the Midwest Region
Chicago (March 25 and 27)
Final Four
New Orleans (April 2 and 4)
First round seed matchups, history
TheLines offers a look back at the history of all of the first round seed matchups. Check them out here:
March Madness betting sites
How the NCAA Tournament works
March Madness is a 68-team, single-elimination tournament that annually crowns college basketball’s NCAA Division 1 men’s national champion.
The event is aptly named, considering it features a frenetic 67 games over a 19-day period. The participating schools are announced on “Selection Sunday”, along with the exact seeding and brackets.
The annual college basketball rite of spring is sports betting’s most prolific multi-day event. Below you’ll find the current betting odds for the favorites to win the NCAA Tournament, along with key tournament details and betting strategy to help you during the month-long madness.
The first 32 teams to gain entry into the tournament do so automatically by winning their conferences. The remaining 36 slots are filled by “at-large” teams. A 10-member selection committee consisting of athletic directors and conference commissioners undergoes an arduous and multi-layered process to determine the 36 at-large teams and subsequently finalize seeding and brackets.
This year, the committee will employ the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) as its primary sorting method for determining at-large entrants. The NET replaces the RPI (Rating Percentage Index), which had been utilized since 1981.
The NET utilizes the following metrics:
-
- Game results
- Strength of schedule
- Game location
- Scoring margin
- Offensive and defensive efficiency
- Quality of wins and losses
The NCAA has a detailed, step-by-step breakdown of seeding and bracket protocol on this page within its website.
March Madness betting history
The first NCAA basketball tournament took place in 1939 in Evanston, Illinois. Since then, 37 teams have won it all and five teams have won the tournament at least five times (Indiana, Duke, UNC, Kentucky, UCLA). Since seeding began in 1979, number 1 seeds have won the tournament 25 times and have accounted for almost 49% of all championship appearances. Just three times has a team seeded lower than four won the title, and no team seeded below eighth has won, nor made a championship appearance.
Since betting lines were released for NCAA tournament games in 1985, underdogs in March Madness odds have covered 44% of the time, winning outright 29% of the time. Games have gone under the total in 56% of games. Since 2010, games have gone under the total in 70% of games and favorites have covered in seven out of ten games. Three teams have won more than one championship since 2010 (Duke, UConn, Villanova), but none have won back-to-back titles (despite Butler & UNC appearing in back-to-back title games).
Since 2000, the top overall seed has made the championship game just four times but won the game three of those times (75%). In total, top overall seeds in the tournament have comprised of just 8% of the total Final Four teams (missed 13 out of 20 years). Besides 1-seeds, 2-seeds have the most championship appearances since 2000 (7 times), followed by 3-seeds (6 times), and 5- and 8-seeds (2).
Just eight percent (52/640) of all Sweet 16 teams have been seeded 11 or lower, and only 2.8% of teams in the Elite Eight were seeded 11 or lower. Four 11 seeds advanced to the Final Four (Loyola Chicago, 2018; VCU, 2011; George Mason, 2006; LSU, 1986). UMBC is the only 16-seed to upset a 1-seed in the tournament’s history (2018), and just eight 15-seeds have prevailed (5%). In 2015, two 15-seeds upset 2-seeds (25% of all such upsets) and two 14-seeds upset 3-seeds.
Using historical data when filling out brackets and betting March Madness, err caution; stats should be used in the long-run but when choosing individual games, be sure to study matchup statistics. The most important thing to remember, though, is this is March Madness, and anything can (and will) happen.
Tournament betting strategies
The historical ATS data for each team in tournament play is just one of countless data points that can constitute March Madness odds betting research. Other factors that can hold considerable relevance include:
-
- A team’s late-season performances, including in their conference tournament
- Key injuries
- A team’s defensive proficiency, as this typically has more carryover into tournament play than a high-powered offense
- “Fading the public” when the line appears to be significantly affected by a team’s popularity, as opposed to actual recent performance
- Examining various tournament-specific historical trends, such as how high-seeded mid-majors have done in each round in terms of straight-up wins and losses.
Another overarching data set that could prove highly valuable is the performance of each seed in each round versus the spread. Courtesy of BoydsBets.com, below is an overview of historical first-round performance by seeds 1-16 against the number:
[table “” not found /]Where can you legally wager on March Madness this year?
Bettors physically located within the following states will be able to place a legal sports wager on March Madness games:
-
- Arizona Sports Betting
- Arkansas
- Colorado Sportsbooks
- Delaware
- Illinois Sportsbooks
- Indiana Sportsbooks
- Iowa Sportsbooks
- Michigan Sportsbooks
- Mississippi
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey Sportsbooks
- New Mexico
- New York Sports Betting
- Nevada
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania Sportsbooks
- Rhode Island
- Tennessee Sportsbooks
- West Virginia Sportsbooks
- Virginia Sportsbooks
Then, there will be a flurry of sports betting legalization efforts unfolding at statehouses around the country during 2022 legislative sessions. Thus, hundreds of thousands of potential new bettors are expected to be part of the fun when the 2023 version of March Madness rolls around.
Based on recent progress and momentum, many states appear to have at least a fighting chance of implementing legalized sports betting in time for next year’s tournament.