Memphis – Easy Pick for NCAA Tournament Championship
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
Now that we’re down to the Final Four at the men’s college basketball Tournament, betting on the futures market has to be handled a little differently – almost like handicapping a single game straight up.
Using this approach, the Memphis Tigers are the easy pick at 27-10. The Tigers are favored by two points over UCLA (63-20) in Saturday’s semifinal; since we’re picking straight up to go to the championship game, a 2-point spread is a fair indicator that Memphis has a better chance of advancing. That’s not always the way it happens, of course, but there is a correlation between the pointspread and who wins straight up.
The Tigers would then either face North Carolina (7-4) or Kansas (31-10) in the final. The Heels are 3-point faves in their semifinal, so let’s project them to advance. In a hypothetical Memphis-UNC matchup, Memphis is the easy pick because of the bigger payout in what looks like a toss-up.

