Manhattan Vs. Hampton Early Odds

The NCAA Tournament will kick off today with the First Four going head-to-head. Ahead of that there are some need-to-know factoids that could help along the way when laying money down.

While it may seem like those Cinderella stories happen often, the reality is your safe bet is to roll with the favorites. Since the 64-team tournaments expansion in 1985, 18 of the 30 national champions were No. 1 seeds. That means around 60 percent of No. 1 seeded teams have gone on to win the NCAA Championship since its modern inception.

Essentially, that means that smart money, in terms of future odds, should go on Kentucky, Villanova, Duke or Wisconsin.

However, 40 percent leaves a lot of wiggle room for risky bettors looking to make a killing off a dark horse. Take last year’s tourney when No. 7-seeded Connecticut become the third team in 30 years to win it all coming into a tournament as below a No. 4 seed.

You can also think of it this way if you are thinking of betting on a big under dog. No. 16 seeds are 500/1 to win it in the future odds for a reason.

In other words you probably should not go laying any money in terms of future odds on Manhattan or Hampton to win the big one. However, laying money on the game is another story.

While it may not seem like whoever wins this game is really winning, considering they will have to go up against huge odds in facing Kentucky, both these teams want to shock the world.

Manhattan opened up as the -9-point favorites and the total was set at 140 points.

Manhattan has covered the spread in six of their last seven games and beat Louisville earlier in the season. Manhattan has trended toward the UNDER as of late. They have sent UNDER bettors to the window for four straight games.

Hampton is not intimidated playing from an underdog position. They have beat three teams by double-digits this season when pegged as underdogs by the books.