NCAA Basketball: 5 key questions for “best bets” of 2021-22 season

2. Which is the worst value bet to win the 2021-22 NCAA Basketball title?

Farmer

The worst value bet to win the national title is Memphis at 15-1. Despite landing top recruits Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren, Memphis is severely overrated nationally. In a year when many very good older players elected to return to college, the freshmen-heavy Tigers don’t have what it takes to go deep in March. Not to mention, Penny Hardaway has yet to accomplish anything yet as their coach outside the recruiting trail.

Waddell

There is one team in the top 10 favorites that I can say wholeheartedly without hesitation will not win the championship next year and it is Villanova at +1500.  Jay Wright is one of the best coaches in the sport but this roster’s preseason hype is twenty spots too many due to the team’s success with much better players over the last decade. If Collin Gillespie is a first-team All-American and leads Nova to a final four I will eat a shoe.

Mumm

There wasn’t much reason to have faith in the Spartans last season. Issues shooting the ball and providing quality defense dropped Michigan State from a top-40 team on both ends of the floor to 210th+.

Head coach Tom Izzo shook up the roster this offseason, notably in the backcourt with veteran point guard Tyson Walker, and signed a strong recruiting class of guards. There’s obvious optimism in East Lansing with a 6-point loss to eventual Final Four team UCLA in the 2021 NCAA Tournament fresh on their minds.

There’s no doubt the Spartans return to the NCAA Tournament in 2022, but a price of +3000 is seemingly giving too much credit to a program that still has large concerns of consistency in the backcourt. There should be more preseason value on the table for this group.