2010 NCAA Tournaments Possible Upsets in the East Regional

In the last installment of “Upset Alert,” we looked at the South region. Now let’s look at the East Region. While there don’t appear to be a ton of upsets looming, there certainly are a few lower seeded teams that can make some money for you in the betting odds. Let’s look a few of those matchups:

No. 12 Cornell Big Red (27-4 SU, 16-10 ATS) vs. No. 5 Temple Owls (29-5 SU, 22-11-1 ATS)

Friday, 12:30 p.m.

Opening Betting Line: Temple -4

Whenever the NCAA Tournament brackets are announced, the first thing anyone looks for is a potential upset in the No. 5 seed vs. No. 12 seed matchup. And we may very well have one here when the Temple Owls take on Cornell in Friday afternoon’s betting odds.

Cornell comes into this NCAA Tournament, having all the ingredients needed to spring the upset. They are hot, having won 15 of their last 16 games, experienced (they’ve made back to back NCAA Tournaments) and talented, as forward Ryan Wittman averages over 17 points a game.

They are also fearless, as they played No. 1 seeds Syracuse and Kansas tough earlier this year.

However, Temple won’t go down without a fight, as they were one of the best teams against the spread in college basketball this season. Maybe even impressive is how they’ve been playing of late, as they ripped through the Atlantic 10 Tournament, and are 5-0 against the spread in their last five games.

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But as well as they’ve played, they will still be facing a challenge unlike few they’ve faced this year, when they take on the Big Red. We’re not saying that Cornell will necessarily win straight up, but the four points they’re getting in the betting odds sure do make them enticing.

No. 14 Montana Grizzlies (22-9 SU, 17-11 ATS) vs. No. 3 New Mexico Lobos (29-4 SU, 18-13-1 ATS)

Thursday, 9:40 p.m.

Opening Betting Line: New Mexico -9

While New Mexico comes into this game as a comfortable favorite in the betting odds, look again, this one may be closer than it seems on paper.

For starters, let’s look at the favorite, the New Mexico Lobos. They are talented and skilled, and have several impressive out of conference wins, including against NCAA Tournament teams Cal, Texas A&M and New Mexico State. But one thing they are short on is experience, no player on this team has ever played in an NCAA Tournament.

And don’t sleep on the Grizzlies either. Remember, they were just the four seed in the Big Sky Conference Tournament, and needed to win three straight games just to get here. Also, for all the talk about New Mexico’s superstar forward Darrington Hobson, the best player on the court may be wearing a Montana uniform.

That’d be guard Anthony Johnson, who averaged over 19 points a game on the season, and went off for an absurd 42 points in the conference championship game against Weber State.

Montana likes to play games in the 60’s (their defense is ranked 31st in the country, allowing opponents just 61 points a game), so expect it to be low scoring.

Because of it, take the Grizzlies in the college basketball betting odds.