Friday, May 18th, 2012
The Arizona Wildcats (27-7) will meet the 12th seed Memphis Tigers (25-9), who won the Conference USA tournament championship and are the only C-USA team to make the field of 64. Conference USA had a down year this year.
The conference had a 16-10 record over the past 10 years in the first round; 8 teams made the Sweet 16, 5 made the Elite 8, 3 made the Final Four and Memphis made the Championship game in 2008. Last year was the first year that C-USA did not have a winner in the first round of the tournament. Memphis has a 5-0 first round record in since 2004.
The PAC-10 is not doing as well as normal either this year. The conferences best team is the Arizona Wildcats who were awarded a 5 seed in the tournament this year. These two teams have similar non-conference schedules and neither team did well against the ranked opponents that they faced.
Arizona did make it to the PAC-10 tournament finals, but lost in heart-breaking fashion to Washington in OT. The Wildcats are 6-3 in the first round in the past 10 years. When they win in the first round, they will usually go on a run. However, Arizona has lost 2 of their past 3 first round games and have not been seeded this high since 2005. Neither team made the NCAA tournament last year.
Arizona is currently installed as the 5 1/2 point favorite and about 3/4 of the bettors are placing money on the Wildcats. This is a game where I do like the upset. I’m going to take Memphis to win straight up. The final score will be 67-64.
I’ve decided not to really review the 1 vs 16 matchups going on today (sorry Hampton fans). No 16 seed is ever going to beat a 1 seed and I don’t like betting on the spread in these matchups.
In case you wanted to know, Duke is a 24 1/2 point favorite and about 80% of the bets are being placed on Duke to beat this spread. The MEAC conference is 2-22 all-time in NCAA tournament games and have won once in the past 10 years.
Tags: Atlantic Coast Conference, Conference USA, MEAC, NCAA, NCAA Tournament, PAC-10
