Kennesaw State vs. Xavier NCAA Tournament Round 1: How to watch, odds and predictions for March Madness

Friday’s NCAA Tournament action continues with one of the more fun matchups of the day, with Kennesaw State vs. Xavier in an afternoon tilt. 

The second day of the NCAA Tournament started off with two Power-5 teams, but the second game of the day features a tournament newbie against one of the better mid-major programs in the nation.

The 14th-seeded Kennesaw State Owls and 3rd-seeded Xavier Musketeers will both bring a lot of emotion to the court and will look to become a bracket-buster later in the tourney.

This is Kennesaw State’s first trip to the Big Dance as a Division 1 school. They won the Division 2 national championship in 2004 and entered this year’s tournament after winning both the ASUN regular season and tournament championships. Xavier is making its 29th tournament appearance and its first since 2018. The Musketeers were last in the Sweet 16 in 2017 and have never advanced past the Elite 8.

How to watch Kennesaw State vs. Xavier in the NCAA Tournament Round 1

All of the NCAA Men’s Tournament games will be broadcast on the CBS family of networks this year, as well as TNT, TBS and TruTV.

Kennesaw State vs. Xaiver will the second game of Friday’s first-round slate and will be played at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Date: Friday, March 17
Time: 12:40 pm ET
Channel: TruTV
Streaming: NCAA March Madness Live, fuboTV
Announcers: Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, Evan Washburn

Kennesaw State vs. Xavier NCAA Tournament Round 1 odds

Per odds posted on FanDuel Sportsbook, the Musketeers are 12.5-point favorites. The game has an over/under of 153.5, a -1000 moneyline on Xavier., and a +640 moneyline on Kennesaw State.

The Owls were a great bet against the spread this season, coming in at 21-10-0, while Xavier was a little less of a sure thing with a 19-15-0 record ATS. The intriguing thing about this matchup is how good both teams were on the moneyline — Kennesaw State at 23-8-0 and Xavier at 25-9-0.

The high over/under is no accident, as both teams tend to score a lot of points and leave defense as an afterthought. The offense has kept both teams in nearly every game this season.

Kennesaw State vs. Xavier NCAA Tournament Round 1 prediction

This is a difficult game to handicap because you can’t predict emotion. Either the excitement of playing in their first Division 1 tournament will juice the Owls up or completely overwhelm them. Xavier, on the other hand, may be a tournament veteran, but none of their players were around in 2018 when the Musketeers were last here.

Sometimes you can just smell the upset, and that is the gut feeling here. Take the Owls in one of the best stories of the early rounds.

Prediction: Kennesaw State 89 – Xavier 85