Hopefully, you were able to download both of VSiN’s tournament guides, which were released on Monday. If not, make sure you do so. In the Betting Guide, I released two heavy trend-based articles for the NCAA tournament, in which I detailed many round-by-round and conference-oriented angles. The problem with those pieces, if there is one, is that with the tight production deadlines, I am not able to qualify all the various trends by the specific matchups. Well, in response to many requests I have gotten in recent years to do so, I will be doing a series of updated pieces noting the games to which specific trends apply, as well as the team and/or total option that would be suggested by the angle. I hope this saves VSiN readers a lot of time and effort, in addition to giving you a better shot at capitalizing on the historically successful information. With that in mind, let’s get it started with the First Four games. On Wednesday I will be going through the entire slate o f first-round action in a separate piece.
• Over the last 10 NCAA tournaments, underdogs own a 22-16 ATS (57.8%) edge in the play-in round.
• Formerly, all play-in games used to match #16 seeds; recently, play-in games featuring seeds 12 or better have trended 14-6 UNDER (70%)
• Higher totaled play-in games, or those higher than 139, have also trended 12-7 UNDER (63.2%)
• Back to the point spread benchmarks, favorites of 3 points or more are 20-11 SU but just 13-17-1 ATS (43.3%)
• Outright winners have gone 31-3 ATS (91.2%) in the play-in round since 2013 although in a strange most recent loss, Drake did win vs Wichita State without covering in 2021 on a 1.5-point spread.
Applicable Conference Trends for the First Four games
ACC
Teams in the field/First matchup
PITTSBURGH (#11, MIDWEST) vs. MISSISSIPPI ST (#11-SEC)
Trends
Mountain West
Teams in the field/First matchup
NEVADA (#11, WEST) vs. ARIZONA ST (#11-Pac 12)
– Mountain West teams struggles in the NCAAs haven't been that well documented, but collectively they are just 21-53 SU and 22-49-3 ATS (31%) since 2001, including nine straight outright and ATS defeats (against Nevada +2.5)
– As tournament underdogs, Mountain West teams are just 8-37 SU and 11-31-3 ATS (26.2%) since '01. (against Nevada +2.5)