College basketball best bets and projections
It was a pretty chalky opening weekend of March Madness, save for the Jack Gohlke experience as Oakland sent Kentucky home in the first round. Otherwise, favorites have reigned supreme for the most part.
From a betting standpoint, we’ve seen some of the biggest discrepancies of the year between TSI and oddsmakers’ lines, which has been very interesting to keep an eye on. On the women’s side, there have been discrepancies as high as 20+ points, but in those games, TSI has performed very well ATS, which is the goal. The men’s side has been a little more even, but still big discrepancies, particularly between power conference teams against small conference teams, but TSI, again, has done pretty well so it’s more of an intrigue than a concern at this point.
Follow me on X, @TShoeIndex, to get my women’s plays as soon as I make them and before the lines move in response.
Compare my odds to the college basketball odds (Vegas odds) and also take a look at the college basketball betting splits for additional info.
As a refresher, the T Shoe Index (TSI) is my proprietary rating system that I use for college football, NFL, men’s and women’s college basketball, and WNBA. It is a tempo and opponent-adjusted rating that allows us to answer the question, “How many points would team A be expected to score and allow vs Team B”, based on a myriad of statistical factors.
Here are the TSI projections for today, March 25th:
How to read this sheet: the “TSI Projected Spread” is the projected point margin based on TSI ratings. If the number is positive, that indicates Team 1 is projected to win by that margin, if the number is negative, that indicates Team 2 is projected to win by that margin.
Men’s
| Team | Team | TSI | TSI O/U |
| Chicago State | Fairfield | -6.4 | 140.8 |
| Cleveland State | High Point | -5.5 | 155.0 |
| Evansville | Seattle | -6.4 | 141.3 |
| Montana | Arkansas State | -2.0 | 154.1 |
| Tarleton State | Purdue Fort Wayne | -5.0 | 143.5 |
Women’s
| Team | Team | TSI | TSI O/U |
| Butler | Purdue | -5.3 | 127.1 |
| Connecticut | Syracuse | 19.1 | 141.4 |
| Duquesne | Monmouth | 1.3 | 133.7 |
| Gonzaga | Utah | 7.9 | 144.2 |
| Indiana | Oklahoma | 2.0 | 145.3 |
| Iowa | West Virginia | 6.7 | 154.6 |
| Louisiana-Monroe | Grambling | 3.7 | 135.9 |
| NC State | Tennessee | 2.7 | 141.0 |
| North Dakota State | Montana | -1.4 | 141.6 |
| Notre Dame | Mississippi | 7.4 | 131.5 |
| Penn State | Belmont | 4.4 | 142.9 |
| Providence | Colgate | -3.0 | 120.0 |
| Southern California | Kansas | 6.6 | 133.8 |
| Southern Indiana | Wisconsin | 8.8 | 126.1 |
| Troy | Florida International | 4.8 | 151.3 |
| UCLA | Creighton | 6.2 | 138.2 |
| Vermont | Niagara | 5.0 | 133.3 |
