NCAA Tournament Betting Picks – Distracted USC Favored Against VCU Rams

When officials coined the NCAA tournament betting concept of the First Four, they probably didn’t expect to have a team like the USC Trojans involved. This seems like the perfect place for the VCU Rams, and it’s understandable why USC has fallen so low in Kevin O’Neil’s first year after the Tim Floyd disaster.

O’Neil presented his own problems late in the year but now that the Trojans are at full strength in terms of player and personnel, the Trojans are the smarter play in this game.

The VCU Rams aren’t the most worthy take in NCAA tournament betting, since they haven’t been a great play outside of it. Heading in to the tournament, VCU is just 3-6 ATS during a streak of 9 games where they also went 4-5 SU. The fact that they’re underdogs doesn’t help much. VCU is an almost even 5-4 ATS in nine games where they post as dogs.

#11 VCU Rams (23-11) vs. #11 Southern California Trojans (19-14)
Wednesday, March 16th — University of Dayton Arena — 9:00pm EST
NCAA Tournament Betting Line: USC -4.5 (127.0)

Playing USC doesn’t do much to raise the profile of VCU, especially with so much inherent drama built in to the season for the Trojans in NCAA tournament betting. The Trojans fell in the Pac-10 tournament to Arizona, dropping their record in tournament play to just 1-1 SU and ATS with head coach Kevin O’Neil suspended.

Before that, however, USC had plenty of value as a betting commodity. USC went a strong 5-2-1 ATS in their last 8 games of the regular season and also cruised to a strong 6-2 SU during that run. With O’Neil on the sidelines calling plays it seems that USC is poised to punch their ticket to playing Georgetown on Friday instead of VCU.

I just can’t trust VCU in this kind of game. They spend the entire year playing in the crap infested NCAA Conference and considering that USC underachieved in the intense Pac-10, it’s hard to undermine this team refocusing their intentions as NCAA tournament betting continues through the First Four.