Submitted by kpomponio on Mon, 03/24/2025 - 17:30

Even in a top-heavy NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament so far, one team has stood out above the rest.

Duke, the East Region’s top seed, has been nothing short of dominant, winning its first two games by an average of 33.5 points. And entering the Sweet 16, a healthy Cooper Flagg and the Blue Devils have emerged as the clear favorite to cut down the nets April 7 in San Antonio. 

Following, we take a closer look at the top favorites and the NCAA tournament  championship odds as we prepare for the start of the regional semifinals Thursday night.

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Below are the updated national championship odds …

 

 

March Madness championship odds update: 7 of top 8 seeds still alive

And when we mentioned “top-heavy” above, it was anything but hyperbole.

Seven of the 68-team bracket’s top eight seeds are still alive entering the Sweet 16 — including all four No. 1s (Auburn, Florida, Duke and Houston) — as are 12 of the 16 top-4 seeds.

A full 15 of this year’s Sweet 16 teams were seeded among the top 24 entering the tourney, with the only exception being the West Region’s 10th-seeded Arkansas — one of a record seven Southeastern Conference teams among the final 16.

This is the first Sweet 16 with no seed lower than a 10 since 2007. That’s only happened five times since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

And with the SEC seven leading the way, only four conferences — and the top four high-major conferences at that — are represented in the regional semis with the Big 12 and Big Ten sending four teams apiece along with the Atlantic Coast Conference-chmapion Blue Devils.

Per OptaStats, it’s the first time since the men’s tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975 that the Sweet 16 is comprised of teams from major conferences.

The previous low for the total number of conferences represented in the Sweet 16 was seven.

March Madness championship odds update: Duke is biggest sportsbook title liability 

NCAA tourney game favorites have gone 39-13 straight up and 28-24 against the point spread so far, according to Bet Labs Sports. 

 

And that includes a 19-9 ATS record for favorites laying 6-plus points.

Two of the above wins and covers, of course, were posted by the Blue Devils who covered a 32.5-point spread — and with room to spare — in a 93-49 rout of 16th-seed Mount St. Mary’s in the first round and a 12.5-point spread in an 89-66 thumping of 9-seed Baylor in the Round of the 32.

As a result, Duke is a 9.5-point favorite over fourth-seeded Arizona in their East regional semifinal matchup Thursday in Newark, making the Wildcats the reported third-largest top-4 seed underdog in the Sweet 16 since 2000.

Flagg, the Wooden Award Favorite, has shown no lingering affects from his ACC tournament ankle injury, averaging 16 points, 8.0 rebounds and 5.5 assists over 25.5 minutes in two NCAA contests.

As a team, Duke is shooting 55.7 percent from the field with only seven turnovers in its two wins while the opposition is shooting only 33.6 percent with 16 total turnovers.

Overall, Duke remains the top-rated team at respected guru Ken Pomeroy's analytics site. The Devils are the only team boasting both a top-nine-ranked offense (No. 1) and defense (No. 4), in terms of adjusted efficiency, and their net rating of of plus-39.00 would be the highest single-season figure since the site began tracking data in 2002.

Duke entered the tourney with consensus championship odds of +320, but they were down to +217 as of Monday.

Meanwhile, the Blue Devils Final Four odds were a consensus -180 as of Monday — the shortest of any of the four 1-seed regional favorites (Auburn -138, Florida -128, Houston -120).

And that’s despite coach Jon Scheyer’s team having the toughest remaining path to  San Antonio, according to the Pomeroy ratings. In Duke’s way are 13th-ranked Arizona and, most likely, sixth-ranked Alabama, the East’s 2-seed who plays 6-seed BYU in the regional semis.

Suffice to say, oddsmakers will be rooting for Duke to stumble.

As of Monday, both DraftKings and BetMGM said Duke had attracted the highest percentages of both NCAA tourney championship tickets and total handle. At BetMGM, the Blue Devils had accounted for a whopping 38.3 percent of the sportsbook’s title handle.

West No. 1 seed Florida is BetMGM’s second-biggest championship liability with 12.7% of the handle and 9.1% of tickets.

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