:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72069890/usa_today_20151466.0.jpg "March Madness 2023 picks: Futures bets after Selection Sunday")
Selection Sunday has come and gone and we now know the full 68-team field for the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Along with filling out a bracket, there's numerous team futures you can wager on at DraftKings Sportsbook and we'll go over a few of our favorites below.
2023 March Madness futures bets
No. 5 San Diego State had an impressive campaign this season and enters this year's tournament as a sleeper pick to make a run. The Aztecs swept both the Mountain West regular season and conference tournament titles and did so with one of the stingiest defenses in the nation.
SDSU has a pretty favorable draw in the South Region, facing Charleston in the first round before playing either Virginia or Furman in round two. One can easily imagine the Aztecs making it to the second weekend and we'll take the bet of them making it to the Sweet 16.
Of all four corners of the bracket, the East Region has the potential to be the most chaotic. Teams like Marquette and Duke could make potential runs while mid-majors like Oral Roberts and Florida Atlantic could make names for themselves. And then you have No. 1 Purdue, who has the likely national player of the year in Zach Edey, but showed vulnerability late in the season.
Amidst this chaos, we'll take No. 3 Kansas State to win the East and punch its ticket to the Final Four. the Wildcats had a dramatic turnaround under first-year head coach Jerome Tang and were well into the hunt for the Big 12 regular season championship late into the year. KSU boasts a top-20 defense in adjusted efficiency and that combined with its experience playing elite opponents could potentially carry it through to Houston.
No. 2 Texas was able to shake off the Chris Beard situation mid-season and maintain its status as a top 10 team in the country. Led by Marcus Carr, the Longhorns clobbered Kansas in its season finale and did the same one week later in the Big 12 Tournament title game to draw some consideration for a one-seed.
UT has been excellent on both sides of the floor all season long and picked up the second-most Quad 1 victories in the nation this season at 14. Those credentials make them a solid national championship contender heading into the tournament and has a fairly favorable path to Houston. We'll wager on the Longhorns reaching Final Four and getting to the title game in their home state.