Madness Betting - Conference Feast Could be Tournament Famine
by Mike Rose
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Winning your conference tournament is always a tremendous prize that should never be taken for granted. Only four teams from the non-BCS schools earned at-large bids to the , take a look at BetUS’s analysis of how teams that have captured tournament crowns perform on the biggest dance floor of them all!
Bulldog Bulldozed
Last season, the Georgia Bulldogs only won four games in SEC play the entire regular season, but strung together four wins in a matter of about 72 hours to win the conference tournament to punch their ticket to the dance. They were punished for a poor regular season with a #14 seed and subjected to going up against a strong #3 seed in Xavier. The Musketeers pounded the Bulldogs 73-61 and covered the nine-point spread that day. This year, the Bulldogs of choice are those of Mississippi State. With no hope of an at-large bid, MSU marched all the way through the SEC Tournament and won a very hard-fought game over the Tennessee Volunteers to head to the dance. The selection committee may not have given it the benefit of the doubt by giving them a 13 seed, but the oddsmakers suggest a closer game. The Bulldogs are just five-point underdogs against #4 Washington, which is especially notable since the game will be played in Portland and will surely be a de facto home game for the regular season Pac-10 champs.
ACC Hangover
The last team to win both the ACC Conference and the NCAA Tournament was Duke back in 2001. The Blue Devils won this year’s conference crown and will look to reverse that trend. The only other team that even advanced to the Final Four in that stretch was the ’08 Tar Heels, who finally got bounced by the eventual champs, the Kansas Jayhawks. Some of the conference champs have gotten particularly unlucky, as Duke was bounced in the Sweet 16 in both 2005 and 2006 as ACC Champs, while the ’04 Maryland Terrapins went from a bubble team to a #3 seed and didn’t survive the first weekend of play. The worse fate is owned by none other than the Florida State Seminoles. The Noles lost in the conference final, and must face the fact that the L/3 runner-ups in the ACC Tournament have combined to win just three games.
Orange Crush
The Orange played in one of the epic games in the history of college basketball in their second game of the basketball betting line in the Big East Tournament Championship Game. The last two times they reached the Big East final was in 2005 and 2006. In ’05, they were bounced in the first round by the Vermont Catamounts, who were a #13 seed. The following year, the #5 Orange were crushed by #12 Texas A&M 66-58. Will a similar fate be in store for HC Jim Boeheim and the Orange this year?
