Many are proclaiming the West Region to be a breeze for the team’s seeded in the upper half of the rankings. By now, we all know what happens when the betting public voice their opinions on a weak bracket or a team that shouldn’t have made it… right? This only means the West is going to be littered with upsets and games that go down to the wire. Taking that mentality, let’s break the bracket down and see if we can’t come up with some viable options to win it on the futures odds.
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ODDS TO WIN WEST REGION
Gonzaga +160
Arizona +180
Florida State +600
West Virginia +550
Notre Dame +800
Maryland +3300
Saint Mary's +1400
Northwestern +4000
Vanderbilt +4000
Xavier +4000
Virginia Commonwealth +5000
Princeton +20000
Bucknell +20000
Florida Gulf Coast +25000
North Dakota +50000
South Dakota State +100000
West Virginia Mountaineers +550
Huggy Bear’s Mountaineers failed to impress at the tail end of the Big 12 regular season and was then handled with ease in the conference tourney title game. However, this is a team that won a number of big games and has the makeup at both ends of the floor to do some major damage to any that overlook them when filling out their brackets. Press Virginia forces turnovers; a lot of them. In fact, they enter the Big Dance ranked No. 1 in that department with an average of 20.4 per game.
It shouldn’t have a problem turning Bucknell over in the First Round, but Jevon Carter and company will have some work to do versus either Notre Dame or Princeton in the Second Round with each ranked amongst the top-6 at holding onto the basketball. Still, this is a veteran and very deep team that’s really built up some team chemistry by going through some major wars together. It had both Kansas and Baylor on the ropes late in the season on the road, but failed to deliver the knockout blow. Don’t be shocked if it finally puts it all together when it matters most.
St. Mary’s Gaels +1400
With Gonzaga only losing one game in the regular season, the Gaels were treated like the red-headed step child of the West Coast Conference. Be that as it may, don’t for one second dismiss this team due to the Bulldogs embarrassing them in all three meetings. The Zags are their big brother and simply just own them.
Randy Bennett has got an interesting team at his disposal that can handle its business at both ends of the court with it ranked No. 8 in the nation in field goal percentage and No. 2 in scoring defense. That’s a fantastic recipe for success, but when you add an average of just 10.5 turnovers per game to the mix, the recipe gets even tastier. With Joe Rahon at the point and seven footer Jock Landale clogging the paint, St. Mary’s is going to be a pain in the ass for anyone that runs up against it.
Florida Gulf Coast Eagles +25000
Dunk City did it once before. Why not again? Rewind three seasons ago when the No. 15 Eagles ran up against the No. 2 seed Georgetown Hoyas. FGCU went off the board as decided 13.5 point underdogs. All that team did was go out and thump the Hoyas 78-68 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the 10 point final spread indicates. Fast forward to this season and they’re running up against the No. 3 Florida State Seminoles. Again, they’re double-digit underdogs.
While the players on this team are different from the last, the mantra remains the same. Spread the floor and tire the opposition out. Florida Gulf Coast shoots an insanely high 50.2 percent from the field with most of those points coming at close range. If it can get by an FSU team that’s had all sorts of trouble winning away from Tallahassee, all that stands in their way of the Sweet 16 would be an Xavier team that slumped the second half of the season without its point guard or a young Maryland team that was exposed the second half of the regular season.
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