To honor the legendary founder of Nike, there will be two eight-team tournaments held in Portland, Oregon during Thanksgiving weekend. Teams that are sponsored by Nike from across the country will take part in the event that should be the premier preseason college basketball tournament of the season. Four of the top ten teams in the country will be participating in this event and ESPN will be televising every game.
These games will take place at the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. The Phil Knight Invitational will play out from Thursday, November 23 until Sunday, November 26, 2017. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for every game in the Phil Knight Invitational.
Opening College Basketball Odds at BookMaker.eu
Rather than make this one large 16-team tournament, the Phil Knight Invitational is set up as two brackets with eight teams in each. Each bracket will have a champion and at the conclusion of the event, those two teams will be co-champions.
The Victory Bracket will feature North Carolina, Portland, Arkansas, Oklahoma, DePaul, Michigan State, Connecticut, and Oregon vying for the top spot. The Motion Bracket boasts Duke, Portland State, Butler, Texas, Florida, Stanford, Gonzaga, and Ohio State.
Victory Bracket
Michigan State and North Carolina are going to be your two overwhelming favorites here. The Spartans are probably the favorite to win it all as the No. 2 team in the country whose only loss on the season came at the hands of No. 1 Duke. However, the Spartans may be vulnerable. Miles Bridges sprained an ankle in Michigan State’s win over Stony Brook on Sunday and may not be able to play in this tournament. Bridges might be the best player in the country and losing him would really hurt the Spartans’ chances.
The Tar Heels are going to be the other favorite in this bracket. North Carolina is already on the West Coast for a game against Stanford on Monday and that will give this team a nice test before this tournament kicks off. UNC is breaking in a lot of new players after most of last year’s national title winning team left, but Luke Maye and Theo Pinson are still there and Joel Berry II is back in the lineup after missing the first game.
Oregon is the other team to watch in this bracket. The Ducks lost their three best players off of last year’s team but brought in a very good recruiting class and have a great coach in Dana Altman. They are off to a 3-0 start and could use this tournament as their coming out party.
Motion Bracket
There’s no question who the favorite is in this bracket. Duke is the No. 1 team in the country and it’s impossible to doubt the Blue Devils after they started the season with a win over Michigan State. Grayson Allen is shooting the lights out and Marvin Bagley III looks to be as good as advertised as a freshman. Duke is looking very scary this year.
Florida is the other team to watch in this bracket. The Gators have a star in transfer Egor Koulechov, who transferred over from Rice in the offseason, and he has been bombarding from downtown. Through four games, he is sinking 57.1 percent of his threes and he is perfect from the line too.
In this bracket, the team to watch is Texas. Shaka Smart is in his third year as head coach of the Longhorns and that means this is his team now. Smart has gotten three full recruiting cycles and can really play the Havoc defense that made his VCU teams so good. Texas has held all three of its opponents thus far to 60 points or less.
Free College Basketball ATS Picks
Keep an eye on Oregon and Texas in the second round of this tournament. Provided they win their first games, they will be matched up against a Top 10 team. I would take both teams to cover.
College Basketball Odds: Back Oregon and Texas in the Phil Knight Invitational
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