Odds to Win East Bracket

I think the East may be the toughest region and it will be a dogfight to make it to the Final 4. There are 4 or 5 teams that can come out of this region and there are 4 teams from the Big East conference, which was the toughest conference in the nation this season.

Here is a look at the teams in the East Region and their odds to win the NCAA Tournament at Sportsbook.com.

Ohio State (+350) is the top seed and they also have the best odds to win the NCAA Tourney. They won the Big 10 conference and the conference tournament and they come into the Big Dance winners of 7 straight. They are solid on offense and defense, but a big concern is that they only rank 195th in the nation in rebounds per game.

North Carolina (+1500) is the #2 seed and they won the ACC, but lost to Duke in the ACC championship game. The Tar Heels can score and rank 1st in the nation in rebounds per game, but their D has not played great lately giving up almost 7 more points than their season average in their last 3 games. Their potential match up against dark horse Washington in the 2nd round will be a tough game.

Syracuse (+2500) and Kentucky (+3500) are the 3rd and 4th seed respectively and each has a chance to get out of the East. Cuse’ has a good inside/outside game and they played in the killer Big East this season. Kentucky can score and rebound and they come into the tournament hot winners of their last 6 games including winning the SEC tournament. Still, they have to get by Princeton in the first round and probably West Virginia in the 2nd round just to play Ohio State for the right to make the regional final.

Losing in their first game in the Big East conference tournament really cost 5th seed West Virginia (+10000), as they have a tough road to hoe even getting to the regional final, as they likely have to beat Kentucky and Ohio State to get there.

6th seed Xavier (+10000) and 11th seed Marquette (+20000) is a killer first round game, but if you look at the big sleeper in the East bracket I have to go with 7th seed Washington (+4000). The Huskies have the 3rd highest scoring team in the nation, rank 12th in rebounds per game, and won the Pac 10 tournament. They face 10th seed Georgia in the first round and while the Bulldogs did play in the tough SEC this season the Bulldogs lost 2 of their last 3 games AND they were only 1-6 this season against ranked teams.