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You Gotta Take the Villanova Wildcats as a March Madness Underdog, OUTRIGHT
Published:
Villanova vs. Utah State in a few hours. The Cats are holding as a slight underdog at Kalshi:
Both 9 seeds won on Thursday. That’s St. Louis and TCU. So we’re gonna play the trend and take the Cats as an 8 seed because surely the 9 seeds aren’t going to win every game of the opening round. It’s science!
The other thing is that Nova went 9-2 in the non-conference and those losses were to BYU and Michigan, who were both ranked in the top 10 at the time. Utah State beat VCU and Davidson on a neutral floor while losing to South Florida, Grand Canyon, UNLV twice, Nevada, and San Diego State. They finished 28-6 overall and won the Mountain West, but gut instinct says that Villanova rebounds from a crap loss to Georgetown in the Big East tournament. Most of their losses this year were to really good teams, four combined against UConn and St. John’s, and even though Matt Hodge is out, the Cats have the guard play to win a tight neutral floor game that requires 2nd half poise.
Give me the CATS.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com