Place Your Bets, Gentlemens

First, if you're not reading Fading Las Vegas or March to March, you're missing out on the best college basketball prognostication available in the free market.

The vast bulk of Kevin Berger's basketball writing is going to be found there, so click accordingly.

The key delineation to make is that Fading Las Vegas is where Kevin is betting his children's college tuition on a game by game and week-by-week basis whereas March to March is a breakdown of pure basketball. One informs thought, the other action.

From a Big12-o-centric betting perspective, take a look here. Looks like K-State, Baylor, Utah State, Oklahoma St are all considered bettable.

Here are the current betting lines from various books.

I like Siena +4.5 over Purdue and Baylor -11 over Sam Houston State. Baylor has been a spread-covering stalwart all year and Siena appears as underseeded as Purdue is overseeded. Beyond that, I'd also like to pull the trigger on Richmond -2 over St. Marys as I have the Spiders in the Sweet 16. The Georgetown and Ohio over (138) also makes sense to me. When Georgetown is clicking, they can easily play in 80s.

If you just like watching good basketball and don't want to risk broken legs from Jimmy The Ear or Fat Tony Canole, Burnt Orange Nation has your coverage maps.

Send one to Chykie Brown.

So who are the surprise teams on opening day?

I like:

BYU
Siena
UTEP

...as my opening round double digit seed winners.

You?