Coming into this year’s NCAA Tournament, No. 12 seeds were 21-31 straight up and 29-22-1 against the spread in their last 52 games against No. 5 seeds. After Thursday’s No. 12 seeds went a disappointing 0-2 SU and ATS, the Murray State Racers and the New Mexico State Aggies will try to do some damage in Friday’s Round of 64 action.
NCAA tournament 2018 odds: Betting lines and trends for Friday’s Round of 64 games
Murray State and New Mexico State will try to break some brackets as No. 12 seeds, but both schools are set as clear betting underdogs at the sportsbooks.
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Murray State is the biggest underdog out of all of this year’s No. 12 seeds going off at +10.5 against the West Virginia Mountaineers on the March Madness odds at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. The trends aren’t positive for an outright upset in this game as the Racers are 0-3 SU in their last three games against Big 12 opponents and 2-20 SU in their last 22 games as a double-digit underdog.
With that said, the Mountaineers are 0-6 ATS in their last six games as a favorite of 10.5 points or more, and the Racers are playing well with 13 straight wins.
The No. 5 Clemson Tigers could be on upset alert in the final game of the Round of 64 as 5-point favorites over the No. 12 Aggies. Clemson doesn’t enter the tournament with much momentum on the heels of a 3-5 SU and 4-4 ATS run to end the regular season but is 4-1 ATS in its last five games as a favorite.
New Mexico State is 1-5 SU in its last five games as an underdog of five points or less per the OddsShark College Basketball Database.
The AP Top 25’s unanimous No. 1 team kicks off its tournament on Friday night as the Virginia Cavaliers (-21) take on the No. 16 UMBC Retrievers. The Retrievers are 0-14 SU in their last 14 games against ACC opponents, a streak that isn’t likely to be snapped against the 31-2 SU and 20-9-1 ATS Cavaliers. Virginia is 19-7-1 ATS in its last 27 games as a double-digit favorite.
Other heavy favorites on the board Friday include No. 2 Purdue (-20.5) vs. No. 15 Cal State Fullerton, No. 2 North Carolina (-19.5) vs. No. 15 Lipscomb and No. 1 Xavier (-19.5) vs. No. 16 Texas Southern.
And any brackets still in good shape after Thursday night will have to survive a handful of too-close-to-call matchups on Friday in No. 7 Arkansas vs. No. 10 Butler (-1.5), No. 8 Missouri vs. No. 9 Florida State (-1.5), No. 7 Nevada vs. No. 10 Texas (-1), and No. 8 Creighton (-1) vs. No. 9 Kansas State.
For more odds information, betting picks and a breakdown of this week’s top sports betting news check out the OddsShark podcast with Jon Campbell and Andrew Avery. Subscribe on iTunes or listen to it at OddsShark.libsyn.com.
