March Madness is here and I am analyzing every opening round game for the Midwest Bracket. 3 of our other excellent handicappers are handling the other regions. I’ve got the most exciting of the brackets in the fact that there is a real good chance of upsets in round one and beyond in this bracket. I’ll put a post up every evening from now until Thursday saving the Friday games for last.
I’m gonna drop some quick tidbits on each game and give out a few FREE PLAYS along the way. All game times are in CDT cause that time change thing just happened here in the Midwest and these games are in the Midwest region. Y’all can figure out what time it actually is where you live.
Here’s the match-ups and locations for the Midwest games
16 Seed Play in Game Texas Southern/Texas A&M Corpus Christi– 5:40 PM Tuesday in Dayton, OH
Midwest Bracket
1 Kansas vs 16 TSU/TXAMCC – 8:57 PM Thursday in Fort Wort, TX
8 San Diego State 9 vs Creighton – 6:27 PM Thursday in Fort Worth, TX
5 Iowa vs 12 Richmond – 2:10 PM Thursday in Buffalo, NY
4 Providence vs 13 South Dakota State – 11:40 AM Thursday in Buffalo, NY
6 LSU vs 11 Iowa State – 6:20 PM Thursday in Milwaukee, WI
3 Wisconsin vs 14 Colgate – 8:50 PM Thursday in Milwaukee, WI
7 USC vs 10 Miami (FL) – 2:10 PM Thursday in Greenville, SC
2 Auburn vs 15 Jacksonville State – 11:40 AM Thursday in Greenville, SC
16 Seed Play in Game Texas Southern (-3.5) vs Texas A&M CC O/U 136.5 – Honestly I haven’t watched much SWAC or Southland conference games this year so this is all just statistics based. Both these teams play slightly on the faster side, but both teams are very poor in offensive efficiency and slightly better on the defensive end. No play for me here yet, but I lean Texas Southern as they have the best win of either team with a win over Florida
8 San Diego State (-2.5) vs 9 Creighton O/U 120 – Creighton had a nice little run in Big East Tourney before falling to Villanova 54-48 in a defensive dogfight. Their reward is another dogfight against the 2nd best defensive team in country according to KenPom. Creighton is no defensive slouch either. Creighton lost point guard Ryan Nembhard before the Big East tourney and it really showed against Nova. San Diego State has won 12 of 15, and those 3 losses came by a combined 3 points (That’s three 1 point losses folks!), twice to Boise State and once to Colorado State. They will also struggle to score here as their offense has been their main weakness. Matt Bradley a Cal transfer guides their offense and if he is hot they should win this game. The line gives some benefit to Creighton coming out of the Big East, and neither has a home court advantage. I like SDSU, but the numbers say no plays here for me yet as I have it at 3 and 119.
Check out the post tomorrow night for the next group of games
1 Kansas vs 16 TSU/TXAMCC – 8:57 PM Thursday in Fort Wort, TX
5 Iowa vs 12 Richmond – 2:10 PM Thursday in Buffalo, NY
4 Providence vs 13 South Dakota State – 11:40 AM Thursday in Buffalo, NY
