It is not called March Madness for nothing as 68 of the top men\u2019s college basketball teams in the country begin their quest for a national title this Tuesday and Wednesday night starting with four play-in games in Round 1. <\/p>\n
Things really start to heat-up this Thursday with the first 16 games in Round 2 with 16 more to follow on Friday.<\/p>\n
Whether or not you are simply betting on the individual games or filling out a bracket for one the many available NCAA Tournament contests that are out there, the following is a brief look at my top sleeper team from each region to win their first two games and make into next week\u2019s Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
The Lobos are coming off a huge 64-58 victory over San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship after going 15-3 in the MWC in the regular season. <\/p>\n
They are 9-1 straight-up in their last 10 games with an 8-2 record against the spread. They will open this tournament as the No. 7 seed in the South and 4.5-point favorites against No. 10 Stanford in their opening game. <\/p>\n
A win on Friday would set-up a likely Sunday matchup against No. 2 seed Kansas, which is still battling injuries and a very concerning 2-3 SU record in its last five games.<\/p>\n
North Carolina entered last week\u2019s ACC Tournament as the No. 4 seed after going on a 12-1 SU run in its final 13 conference games.
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\nThe stay was short in a 80-75 loss to Pitt in the quarterfinals in a game that ended as a pick, but the NO. 6 seed\u00a0Tar Heels still come into this tournament with quite a bit of momentum from their previous success.<\/p>\n
They will open as 4.5-point favorites against Providence before a likely matchup against No. 3 seed Iowa State on Sunday. Look for a couple of big games from Marcus Paige and James Michael McAdoo in a couple of big wins.<\/p>\n
Consistency has plague Nebraska a couple of different times during the regular season but it appears to be hitting its stride at just the right time of the year. <\/p>\n
The Cornhuskers closed-out the regular season on an 8-1 SU run that included a huge 77-68 victory over Wisconsin in their season finale as three-point home underdogs. They lost to Ohio State 71-67 in the Big Ten Tournament, but covered as 5.5-point underdogs. <\/p>\n
Nebraska has been opened as a 3.5-point underdog against Baylor as the No. 11 seed in the West, but after upsetting the Bears on Friday, I like its chances to get past No. 3 Creighton on Sunday as a likely underdog for that matchup as well.<\/p>\n
It is not all that often that you get to call Kentucky a sleeper, but after a roller-coaster ride of a season, it comes into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 8 seed in the Midwest Region. <\/p>\n
Despite suffering a heartbreaking 61-60 loss to Florida as 6.5-point underdogs, the Wildcats still have built up some momentum for a deep run in this tournament by showing the ability to play the Gators tough with so much on the line. <\/p>\n
They have been opened as five-point favorites against Kansas State in their tournament opener, but the victory that will catch everyone\u2019s attention will come against No. 1 seed Wichita State this upcoming Sunday. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bracket Busters: Top Sleepers for each Region It is not called March Madness for nothing as 68 of the top men\u2019s college basketball teams in the country begin their quest for a national title this Tuesday and Wednesday night starting with four play-in games in Round 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":73796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1415],"tags":[53145,61353,10473,4633,61388,66513,11387,4694,61385,61387,61389,61386],"class_list":["post-73767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-53145","tag-2014-ncaa-tournament","tag-bracket-busters","tag-college-basketball-picks","tag-free-bracket-sleeper-picks","tag-handicapping","tag-march-madness-predictions","tag-ncaa-hoops-predictions","tag-ncaa-tournament-sleepers","tag-sleeper-picks","tag-tournament-sleepers","tag-upset-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73767"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73802,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73767\/revisions\/73802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}