March Madness Round 1: Upsets

The March Madness bracket contest are finally here! On Thursday the first round of play will commence and with it, heartache and torn up March Madness Brackets as well as the usual bragging and boasting that usually will fall to pieces the next day. Everyone will soon be sneaking around the office comparing brackets and you won’t be able to avoid the hysteria of March Madness not matter where you turn. As always, upsets are expected. Here’s the breakdown of the games with the biggest upset potential.

Sportsbook Review: Round 1 Upsets

#4 Purdue Boilermakers (27-5, 14-4 Big Ten) vs. #13 Siena Saints (27-6, 17-1 in MAAC)

This is an extremely interesting matchup as the Boilermakers are coming off an embarrassing defeat to Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament, 69-42. Purdue is without its best player, Robbie Hummel (Torn ACL) and has not been the same team since he went down.

Siena has been in the tournament the last couple of years and it is the same core group that is here now. It took overtime for Siena to take the MAAC title over a pesky Fairfield team; however Siena really wasn’t challenged this year in conference and was 10-5 out of conference. The Saints may be catching Purdue at the right time.

Upset Pick: #13 Siena over #4 Purdue

# 7 Richmond Spiders (26-8, 13-3 in Atlantic 10) @ #10 St Mary’s Gaels (26-5, 11-3 in WCC)

Saint Mary’s is the West Coast Conference’s tournament winner and would have likely gotten in anyways as they had a tremendous season behind Senior center Omir Samhan who averaged 20.9 points and 11 rebounds a game. St Mary’s knocked off Gonzaga, 81-62 to win the WCC.

Richmond fell in the A-10 championship game to Temple 56-52. The Spiders have been solid all season long by the strong guard play of junior Kevin Anderson (17.8 points, 2.6 assists, 3.4 rebounds) and senior David Gonzalvez (14.5 points, 2.3 assists, 4.2 rebounds).

This game is going to be awesome; both teams seemed to get fair rankings as both the WCC and the A-10 were better this year than they ever have been. Richmond can play with anyone and showed incredible resiliency in coming up just short in a comeback attempt against Temple. St Mary’s avenged two of its losses on the season, to Gonzaga, by dominating them in the final. This game could come down to the wire, and both have the potential to make it to the sweet sixteen. St Mary’s is for real and will win this game.

Upset Pick: # 10 St. Mary’s over # 7 Richmond

# 4 Vanderbilt Commodores (24-8, 12-4 in SEC) vs. #13 Murray State Racers (30-4, 17-1 in OVC)

Vanderbilt may be one of the true pretenders in this tournament. They’ve had some bad losses this year and the SEC, outside of Kentucky, Tennesee and Missiissippi State has been significantly overrated and probably the second best team in the SEC, Miss St., was not selected to the tournament. Vanderbilt was convincingly beaten by Miss St in the SEC semis, 62-52, and should have a much lower ranking.

Murray State won 30 games this year. I don’t care if it was the Ohio Valley Conference, it was still impressive. They also played out of conference games extremely tough and blew out most of their competition all season. I will take a team that blows everyone out in a small conference over an overrated team in an overrated conference any day,

Upset Pick # 13 Murray State over # 4 Vanderbilt

NCAA Basketball Betting: Take Murray State, St. Mary’s and Siena