NCAA Basketball 10 Best Bets for 2022 NCAA Tournament First Round

It’s the most beautiful week of the year for us sports bettors.  It’s like Christmas if Christmas was a four-day event with 12+ hours of NCAA basketball and nothing else happening in the world.  Come, let us adore it.

As a gambling man and a nonsensical maniac, I have taken on the challenge this year of betting EVERY SINGLE game in the NCAA Tournament.  If you’d like to see my video on all betting picks for the First Round, you can do so here.

Here are my 10 best bets for the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament, using the latest odds from out betting partners at WynnBET.

Iowa -10.5 vs. Richmond

Since Feb. 1, the Hawkeyes are the 2nd best team in the country according to barttorvik.com.  I fell in love with this team over the weekend when I attended the Big Ten Tournament.

Keegan Murray is the best player in the country when it comes to a combination of talent + production, and he seems primed to take Fran McCaffery on his first deep tournament run ever.  To hang with the Hawkeyes, you need a stingy defense – Richmond is only 104th in the country in defensive efficiency (KP), and the Spiders are only 4-9 in games against top 85 opponents on the season (KP).  The Hawkeyes should run away with this one.

UNDER 120 – Creighton vs. San Diego State

Over/Unders aren’t usually my thing…but there’s value here. This is a matchup between two GREAT defenses – Creighton has the 18th best defense in the country and San Diego St. has the 2nd best defense in the country according to KenPom.  Not only are they great defensively, but they’re also both decisively average offensively (Creighton is 124th and SDST is 157th, KP) and play slow tempos.

Look no further than their last games – Creighton lost to Villanova by a score of 54-48, and San Diego St. lost to Boise St by a score of 53-52.  In 22 of 31 San Diego St. games this season, at least one team has scored in the 50s.  This one will be a rock fight, and both teams are perfectly fine with that.