Six of the NCAA Tournament’s 31 automatic bids have been claimed, so we still have a long way to go in a short amount of time.
Two more bids are up for grabs tonight:
Southern Conference
East Tennessee State (-1.5) vs. Furman
7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Sun Belt
Troy (-5.5) vs. Georgia Southern
7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
Four conferences wrapped up their tournaments Sunday for NCAA bids:
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa (6 seed / +475)
Big South: High Point (1 seed / -160)
ASUN: Queens (3 seed / +400)
Summit League: North Dakota State (1 seed / +140)
They join Long Island (Northeast) and Tennessee State (Ohio Valley), which secured bids Saturday.
One more conference tournament begins play tonight: 👉 Adam Burke’s SWAC preview.
And here’s a nugget from Steve Makinen’s database: SWAC favorites of 3 or more are 30-14-2 ATS (68.2%).
👉 Read Steve’s new mid-major conference tournament trends
More betting insight for Monday’s board:
- Greg “Hoops” Peterson offers his Best Bets on today’s action. 👉 Read here.
- Later this morning: Adam will have his top plays and Josh Appelbaum will interpret the money movement. 👉 Read here.
👉 Visit the Conference Tournament Hub for everything we publish during Champ Week. We’ve just added tournament previews for the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.
Get real-time steam alerts from the DonBest Screen. Sign up now for a 7-day free trial at go.donbest.com. Use the promo code VSIN10 for 10% off your initial subscription.
Zach Cohen’s NBA Report
Back in the win column
With the Raptors, Pelicans and Blazers winning on Sunday, the anti-tanking parlay cashed at -110 odds. Unfortunately, the light five-game Monday slate won’t allow us to go to it two nights in a row.
Another Celtics statement
The Celtics are still waiting for Jayson Tatum to find his offensive efficiency — and he looks a step slow defensively — but they’re 2-0 since he returned to action and blew out the Cavs 109-98 in Cleveland. They’re pacing to finish as the first or second seed in the conference while allowing Tatum to find his footing. That should be terrifying for the rest of the East.
Game of the Night
Nuggets (+7.5) at Thunder, 7:30 ET: The injury report will be crowded for this potential Western Conference Finals matchup, but there will be enough players out there to make this a competitive showdown — including Denver power forward Aaron Gordon, who returned to action on Friday.
👉 Zach’s Best Bets and Steve Makinen‘s Analytics Report will hit around mid-morning on our NBA page.
Odds and ends from weekend
NASCAR: Congrats to Steve Makinen, whose race simulation produced the winner for the third week in a row. Ryan Blaney (+558) won at Phoenix.
Tennis: When Gill Alexander texted me his picks late Saturday night, this one caught my eye: Alexandra Eala +405 vs. Coco Gauff. Since Gill was hanging out in Indian Wells over the weekend, I figured he saw Gauff out late. Then he reminded me that he isn’t out late. Anyway, Eala went up 6-2, 2-0 Sunday before Gauff retired with an arm injury.
Does it cash? Gill wrote back:
Good question. For my show record, I have always done full matches so it won’t count. BetMGM, Circa and DraftKings pay out on Eala (only one set needed). Caesars needs the entire match to be played to grade, so it’s a refund there.
