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The brackets have just been announced. It’s time to start crunching numbers to weed out some March Madness winners on the futures odds! The Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina Tar Heels, Villanova Wildcats, and Kansas Jayhawks are all lined as favorites to cut the nets down in early April. The return on investment isn’t the greatest with each ranked No. 1 seeds, but top seeds often make it to the Final Four as well as the title game. Sometimes they don’t however, so let’s break down the field and look for some safe bets and lottery tickets that just might win it all.... 

The scrappy team from Fort Myers is hoping that Dunk City is back in the Sunshine State as the No.14 seeded Florida Gulf Coast Eagles will look to bring the high-flying antics that brought them national fame in 2013 back to prominence as they get set to take on the No. 3 seed Florida State Seminoles on Thursday in Orlando. Can this FGCU team go on another improbably run?... 

The stars align on Thursday to bring us Melo Trimble against Trevon Blueitt in the third game on the slate in Orlando. With the Maryland Terrapins going against the Xavier Musketeers in an evening tip-off we’ll get to see a surprisingly evenly matched 6-11 game that could be one of the more exciting contests of the first day, particularly if the two stars end up taking over the game for their respective teams.... 

Many are proclaiming the West Region to be a breeze for the team’s seeded in the upper half of the rankings. By now, we all know what happens when the betting public voice their opinions on a weak bracket or a team that shouldn’t have made it… right? This only means the West is going to be littered with upsets and games that go down to the wire. Taking that mentality, let’s break the bracket down and see if we can’t come up with some viable options to win it on the futures odds.... 

The Florida Gators have secured a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will be pinned against the No. 13 seed East Tennessee State Buccaneers in the Round of 64. Florida faltered in the SEC Tournament, losing their second game in a week to Vanderbilt, but Florida still managed to grab a high seed in their return to the Big Dance following a two year hiatus. For East Tennessee State, this is their first time in the tourney since 2010 when they were a No. 16 seed.... 

Both head south for the action, the No. 5 seed Virginia Cavaliers and No. 12 seeded UNC-Wilmington Seahawks will meet up on the first day of the Round-of-64 action. Virginia will try and advance further than they did a year ago, making it all the way to the Elite Eight, but the Seahawks are no slouches. This team thrives on forcing turnovers and could be pesky matchup and we all know to be weary of the 5-12 matchups.... 

With the North Carolina Tar Heels getting to pretty much play in their own backyard through the first weekend of the Big Dance, you can pretty much pencil them into the Sweet 16. After that, it gets much tougher to decipher the South Region with a number of team’s making appearances for the first time in years, and others making their very first in program history. All kinds of young talent is littered throughout this bracket, so it will no doubt be up for grabs should Roy’s boys fail to live up their top billing.... 

The Midwest Region is loaded with a number of teams I already took positions on to win the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately for me, I’m going to need to do some immediate hedging with this region loaded with a number of heavyweights as well as teams that have it in them to spring an upset or two. This and the West region have five teams listed at less than 10-1 to win the bracket, and is the only to have another six teams at 33-1 or lower. A tip of the cap to whomever picks the last four teams standing in this region!... 

Of the four regions announced on Selection Sunday, the East looks to be the most loaded by far. The top seeded Villanova Wildcats have the longest odds of the four No. 1 seeds to win it, which shows just how stacked this region truly is. When the dust clears, someone’s going to come out of the East, so let’s dig into the numbers and see which teams should be considered and which should be thrown to the wayside.... 

Winthrop sounds more like an Ivy League preppie than the powerhouse hoops program from the Big South Conference. And that’s probably why the Winthrop Eagles don’t get much love come tournament time. Back to back national title game appearances put the Butler Bulldogs on the map, but they’ve been unable to replicate that postseason success from six years ago. Now, the Bulldogs don’t want to become a footnote on the Eagles’ run to national prominence.... 

With the win over UCF on Friday, the SMU Mustangs have now won 15 straight games, their last loss coming in January against the same Cincinnati Bearcats they’ll compete against in the American Athletic Conference Tournament Finals on Sunday. It’s truly not that often that the two teams that are the best in any given tournament end up going head-to-head in the finals, but that’s just what we have here in the AAC Tournament.... 

While the Semifinals featured the Yale versus Harvard showdown that draws the attention of everybody when they shift their eyes to the Ivy League, the first every Ivy League Conference finals will feature the Yale Bulldogs against the top seeded Princeton Tigers with the NCAA automatic bid on the line. Princeton has been playing amazing basketball all season long and hasn’t lost a game since December. Can Yale be the first conference team to beat the Tigers this year here in their third meeting?... 

We have a couple of Rams colliding to go head-to-head in the Atlantic-10 Conference finals as the Rhode Island Rams look to secure their first NCAA Tournament bid this century with a win—and the accompanying auto bid—over the VCU Rams. In all likelihood both are going to the Big Dance regardless of the outcome, but the only Rams that truly find themselves on the bubble at this point are the ones from Rhode Island. Will that give them that little added bit of motivation to top VCU?... 

The No. 2 Wisconsin Badgers and No. 8 Michigan Wolverines meet in the Big Ten Conference finals on Sunday afternoon, but the two teams got there in very different ways. After a bad end to the regular season, the Badgers still earned a No. 2 seed granting them free admission into the quarterfinals were they took on a couple surprising teams in Indiana and Northwestern. They’ll get another one in the Wolverines after Michigan took down the top dog in Purdue and then followed suit with the No. 4 seed in Minnesota.... 

The Texas State Bobcats are rolling through the Sun Belt conference tournament, blowing out top-seeded UT-Arlington last time out. They have positioned themselves one victory away from March Madness and have to defeat the Troy Trojans in the conference championship game.... 

Returning to an all too familiar place, the Kentucky Wildcats will go for their third consecutive SEC title on Sunday. Not familiar with the pageantry are the three freshmen studs who led the Wildcats to another tournament championship game. And it’s likely the only one for them as the one-and-dones look to send KU to the Big Dance on a winning note. The Arkansas Razorbacks will seek a better performance against UK than their 26-point loss back in January in the only regular season meeting.... 

It’s only fitting that the Pac-12 end its tournament with the top two teams in the league standings battling for the title. The Oregon Ducks and Arizona Wildcats finished in a tie for first place with identical 16-2 records and they even have the same overall ledger at 29-4 heading into Saturday night’s title fight. The tie-breaker here is Oregon’s 85-58 thrashing of the Wildcats when the teams met in Eugene in their only regular season matchup.... 

The Big 12 Tournament championship game will feature contrasting styles and the one that performs the best will take home the title. The Iowa State Cyclones advanced by averaging 88 points per game and are one of the highest scoring teams in the country. The West Virginia Mountaineers used defense and relentless pressure to hold their two opponents to an average of 51.5 points. WVU won both regular season meetings and did it by scoring in the 80s both times.... 

The defending national champions are getting ready for another run in the NCAA Tournament and it starts with a trip to the Big East title game. Making their third straight appearance playing for the crown, the Villanova Wildcats needed a thrilling play from their player of the year candidate to advance. The Creighton Bluejays are hoping the third time is the charm as they attempt to beat Nova for the first time this season after losing two earlier meetings by an average of 13 points.... 

What we’re seeing from the Duke Blue Devils now is what most expected when they were tabbed the preseason No. 1 team in the country. There were injuries to key players and even Coach K was sidelined with a back issue, but the Dookies never gave up on the season, especially knowing that the group would be back in time for the ACC and NCAA tournaments. No team has ever won four games in four days at the ACC tourney, but with a victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Duke can be the first.... 

After surviving in overtime in the quarterfinals of the MEAC tournament, the No. 2 seed Norfolk State Spartans punched their ticket to the title game by coming back to win and cover against Howard. The top seed N.C. Central Eagles waltzed their way to the championship game with a pair of blowout wins over Bethune Cookman and Maryland Eastern Shore. The conference winner will have to deal with playing the Spartans on their home court, but will take to the hardwood confident knowing it beat them handily earlier this season.... 

The Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders won the Conference USA Tournament as a No. 2 seed last season. They’ll have a shot to do it as a No.1 seed on Saturday night when they run up against the No. 6 seed Marshall Thundering Herd. With this being the Herd’s fourth game in four days and the Blue Raiders third in three, the defenses could suffer which could see a bunch of points hit the scoreboard in the title game.... 

Firmly on the wrong side of the bubble heading into the AAC tournament, the Connecticut Huskies knew it was either win the whole darn thing to get into the Big Dance or settle for a likely bid to the NIT. While it passed its first two tests with flying colors, the challenge is going to get a whole lot tougher against the No. 2 seed Cincinnati Bearcats who boat raced them in the team’s pair of meetings in the regular season.... 

One of the more efficient offenses in the country will square off against one of the more efficient defenses in the semifinals of the AAC tournament on Saturday afternoon when the top seeded SMU Mustangs and No. 4 seed Central Florida Knights collide for the second time this season. These teams played to a competitive 65-60 final at UCF in their lone meeting that SMU won and covered by the slimmest of margins.... 

The top two seeds in the Southland tournament are set to collide for the right to go to the NCAA tournament on Saturday night when the New Orleans Privateers and Texas AM CC Islanders match wits for the second time this season. These rivals lone meeting needed an overtime session to decide the victor, and as evenly matched as these teams are, it wouldn’t be a shock if more time was needed to determine the winner of this one as well....