Which odds offer the best value for the NCAA Tournament's Most Outstanding Player award? Here are our best March Madness MVP predictions.
When picking the NCAA Tournament's Most Oustanding Player as one of the most popular March Madness MVP prop bets, you may not realize you're pretty much betting a parlay. Why? Because since 2000, every single player who has won the tournament's top award has been on the national championship-winning team. So not only are you picking the best player, but you're also picking the team that will win it all.
As such, it's important to based your March Madness MVP picks off the March Madness odds and our March Madness picks while aligning these picks with your March Madness bracket predictions.
With the Houston Cougars favored to win the tournament, it's not surprising to see Marcus Sasser favored to win the award. Behind him are the Alabama Crimson Tide's Brandon Miller, then Zach Edey, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Jalen Wilson round out the top five.
Here are our best March Madness MVP predictions based on the top March Madness MVP odds (odds via FanDuel; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
March Madness MVP predictions
With Marcus Sasser's health up in the air, the Midwest region is much more wide open than people think. The Cougars are the favorites still, and many expect them to get to Houston and cut down the nets in front of a very friendly crowd. Because of all the attention that Houston is getting, the Big 12 Tournament champion Texas Longhorns and their players are offering bettors a lot of value.
Nearly everyone agrees that the Big 12 was the best conference this season. While the Kansas Jayhawks earned the best seed of any of the teams, the Longhorns defeated them twice in their last four games.
This is a team that can absolutely win the tournament, and their best player, Marcus Carr, is averaging 15.9 points and 4.1 assists per game. If the Longhorns are going to make a deep run, then Carr is going to have to continue his excellent play both shooting and passing the ball. At +3100, Carr offers the best value of any player in the tournament.
Many are writing off the UCLA Bruins because they lost Jaylen Clark for the tournament. While Clark was their third-leading scorer this season, the Bruins still have the pieces to make a deep run this month.
With Clark out, it becomes Jaquez's award to lose if the Bruins make a run at their first national title since 1995. He is averaging 17.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game (both team highs), and he has consistently put up the most shots per game for the Bruins. Teammate Tyger Campbell offers a lot of value at +5000, but Jaquez is the workhorse for this offense.
What makes Jaquez an even more appealing pick is that he has experience in March. When the Bruins made their run to the Final Four in 2021, Jaquez was a massive part of the reason why. He had at least 10 points in five of their six games, including a 27-point performance against the Michigan State Spartans in the First Four.
In nine games in March, Jaquez averages 14.4 points per game. Without Clark, he is going to be leaned on even more heavily than normal. For a guy with more experience than nearly anyone in this tournament, this line is a thing of beauty.
Flagler is a really solid value play for Most Outstanding Player. Because the Bears sputtered into the NCAA Tournament, not many are talking about them as a team that can make a serious run in a bracket with the Duke Blue Devils, Purdue Boilermakers, and Marquette Golden Eagles.
However, Baylor has one of the most balanced attacks in all of college basketball with Flagler, Keyonte George, LJ Cryer, and Jalen Bridges all averaging in double figures this season. The way they spread the wealth is also what makes it so hard to know which player would win March Madness MVP if the Bears were to win the title.
George has the shortest pre-tournament odds to win the award of anyone on the Bears, but that is simply because he averaged the most points per game this season. We like Flagler, however, because he not only scores but also creates many scoring opportunities for his teammates. He averages 4.7 assists per game, and if he and one of his teammates are close in terms of points per game, that will likely be the deciding factor for who gets the award.
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