We’re quite sure Vegas Watch can analyze this much better than we can, but we stumbled across the idea on his site last week and decided to throw up this post showing what the current Vegas odds are for winning next April’s national championship.  Analysis to follow table…

Source:  TheGreek.com

Thoughts. 

• It’s a LOCK!!  Given the unpredictable nature of the NCAA Tournament (much less the regular season), getting +350 on a team like North Carolina is as close to a lock as it gets.  We wish we had access to the summer 2001 Duke and summer 2006 Florida numbers to see if they were higher than UNC’s.  Regardless, we still think this bet is a little high; if it were in the +400 to +500 range, we’d like it a lot better. 
• Overvalued.   Unless Coach K has figured out how to bring Dwight Howard with him from Beijing to Durham next season, we don’t see how Duke can be +800.  Same with Florida at +1000 – is there any skilled size whatsoever on these two teams?  Kentucky at +1500????  Patrick Patterson and whose army?    
• Undervalued.  Because only UNC, Duke and Florida are currently higher than the Field (+1200), we see quite a few undervalued teams out there right now.   Let’s start with UConn and Louisville at +1200 each.  These two teams are probably the most well-suited to challenge the Carolina juggernaut next year with their size, strength and athleticism.   How about Tennessee and good grief have we learned nothing yet about Ben Howland – UCLA!!! – at +1500?  There is a ton of talent remaining on those two squads.  Mid-majors Davidson at +2500 and Gonzaga at +4000 also seem like decent values – both teams should be stacked next year… and if Carolina falters somewhere along the way, who knows?
• Indiana.  Wow, for only $1, you can win $500 if Tom Crean, Kyle Taber and company manage to pull off the most miraculous sporting turnaround in the history of organized sports.  Pass. 
• Your Team Isn’t Good Enough to Post Odds.  55 of the listed 59 teams are from BCS conferences.  Other luminaries such as Colorado, Virginia, Iowa St., Rutgers, Depaul, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Penn St., Auburn, South Carolina and Oregon St. were missing from the list.  Actually, we would have loved to have seen what odds Oregon St. would have gotten (0-18 in the Pac-10 last year).  Ok, so we’re joking about the above schools being included, but no Xavier? – they’re usually solid.   

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 4:35 pm by rtmsf and is filed under vegas odds. Tagged: 2009 national title, ben howland, coach k, connecticut, davidson, duke, florida, gonzaga, indiana, kentucky, louisville, ncaa tournament, tennessee, tom crean, ucla, unc, vegas odds, vegas watch, xavier. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.