Betting trends for the NCAA’s truly biggest weekend of college basketball games

Buddy of mine goes to Vegas this week every March. “Wall-to-wall basketball,” he explains. “From 9 in the morning [Pacific time] to midnight.” For sheer volume, the week of the major conference tournaments is better than the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

So let’s run through the majors, and hope for plenty of buzzer-beaters and zero petulance in the handshake line from people who really oughta know better. Spread records via TeamRankings.com.

North Carolina is on the opposite side of the bracket, so they can’t play top-seeded Duke again until the championship. The Tar Heels, who picked up an impressive win at Duke on Saturday, are 38-26-1 (58.5%) against the spread against their archrivals since 1993-94. Hat tip to BetMGM’s John Ewing for that nugget. … Seven of Virginia Tech’s last eight games have been under, including their regular-season finale when they lost to Clemson, 63-59 (o/u was 132). They’ll play Clemson again on Wednesday if the 10th-seeded Tigers can get by North Carolina State on Tuesday. … N.C. State has lost 9 of the last 10 both straight-up AND against the spread. The only team worse than the Wolfpack against the number this year is Pacific.

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Best ATS: Wake Forest (19-12, 61.3%). Worst ATS: N.C. State (7-24, 22.6%).

Georgetown (0-19) is the only high-major team not to win a conference game this season. The Hoyas were 8-10-1 against the spread versus Big East opponents. They stunningly won four games in four days to win last season’s Big East tournament, but that’s so unlikely this year that BetMGM opened the Hoyas at 250-1. … Providence is the No. 1 seed, but third on the board at +500. Villanova (No. 2 seed) is +165. Connecticut (No. 3) is +400. … Butler has scored more than 60 points just once in the last five games.

Best ATS: DePaul (20-10, 66.7%). Worst ATS: Connecticut (12-17-1, 41.4%).

Oklahoma State is serving a postseason ban from a bribery case involving a former assistant coach five years ago and will not compete in the conference tournament. The Cowboys would have been the No. 6 seed and played Texas Tech in the quarters. Instead, Iowa State (and everyone else) moves up a spot and will play the dangerous Red Raiders. … Texas closed on an 0-4-1 run ATS with the push coming against TCU on Feb. 23 when Texas was favored by 9 on the road.. The Longhorns, who also own a 23-point win over TCU, play the Horned Frogs on Thursday afternoon in the quarterfinals. … Defending national champion Baylor came into the week as a No. 1 seed, according to Joe Lunardi. The Bears have won five in a row, but covered only two of those games. If Baylor and Kansas get to the conference final, they figure to be No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

Best ATS: Texas Tech (20-11, 64.5%). Worst ATS: Texas (12-18-1, 40.0%).

Lunardi projected eight teams from the Big Ten to make the NCAA field with Indiana the first team out, so the Hoosiers should be desperate. Indiana plays Michigan on Thursday morning and then would get top-seeded Illinois the following day. … Michigan won by 18 at Indiana in their only meeting this season. Leading scorer and rebounder Hunter Dickinson did not play in Sunday’s season finale because of a stomach bug. Michigan won at Ohio State anyway. … Biggest injury news of the weekend was Wisconsin guard Johnny Davis leaving early in the second half on Sunday after a crunching flagrant foul by Nebraska’s Trey McGowens. Wisky doesn’t play until Friday and coach Greg Gard said after the game, “I’m optimistic he’s going to be fine.”

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Best ATS: Iowa (19-12, 61.3%). Worst ATS: Illinois 13-17 (43.3%).

Arizona was third in the nation in scoring offense (84.7 ppg), which helped the over hit in five of their last six. The average score in those games was 84-73. … No. 2 seed UCLA and No. 3 USC are on track to meet in Friday night’s semifinals. UCLA just ended a five-game losing streak to USC on Saturday, committing one turnover in the entire game. Star guard Johnny Juzang, a Wooden Award finalist, played 32 minutes on Saturday after missing the previous two games with an ankle injury. … Oregon State has lost 17 in a row, going 6-10-1 against the spread. The Beavers, who won this tournament last year and play 5th-seeded Oregon on Wednesday afternoon, haven’t won a game in the 2022 calendar year.

Best ATS: California (19-12, 61.3%). Worst ATS: Oregon State (9-20-1, 31.0%).

Top-seeded Auburn could see Florida in Friday’s quarterfinals. The Tigers have four losses this season – by 5 points at Tennessee, by 1 at Florida, by 4 in overtime at Arkansas, and by 6 in double overtime to Connecticut in the Bahamas. … According to KenPom.com, Alabama played the toughest schedule. The Crimson Tide were the last team to get a first-round bye for the SEC tourney. They are 19-12 straight-up, 11-20 against the spread. … This tournament is being played in Tampa, Fla. Florida briefly allowed sports betting at the end of 2021, but then the Seminole tribe got lawyers involved and now the whole thing is in limbo. Sigh, Florida.

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Best ATS: Auburn (19-11-1, 63.3%). Worst ATS: Georgia (10-20-1, 33.3%).

WBB: South Carolina’s championship odds did not change following its loss to Kentucky in the SEC Championship. Dawn Staley’s club (+200) still is the heavy favorite at PointsBet on Monday morning, followed by Stanford (+425) and Connecticut (+450).

NHL: From the Chris Otto files, Winnipeg, Buffalo and Columbus have played 13 consecutive games entering Monday where more than one goal has been scored in the third period. Minnesota’s at 12 consecutive while Toronto is at 10. The Flyers (and/or their opponents) have hit over 1.5 this period goals in 17 of their last 19.

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UGH: FanDuel had a New Jersey customer put up nearly $41,000 parlay on Friday on Northern Iowa and Viktor Hovland. It would have paid $320,000 after UNI covered an 8-point spread in their win over Illinois State. But, alas, Hovland shot 5-over par in the final two rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and finished in second by one stroke. Ugh.

Oops: DraftKings got rapped on the knuckles last month by a $150,000 fine from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement last month for allowing a Florida customer to wager using a friend by proxy. The Associated Press reported DraftKings also voided 21 bets the man had made that were still pending.

Unlike the Pennsylvania and New Jersey shops, the Westgate in Vegas is not seeing a lot of Sixers action in their futures markets.

“Our public has been hammering the Lakers all year long, and they continue to bet them,” said Ed Salmons, VP of risk management at Westgate. “They must not watch Lakers games.”

L.A. snapped a four-game losing streak with a sparkling win on Saturday over Golden State. They entered Monday in 9th place in the Western Conference at 28-35.