The colorful history of the American West is full of glorious tales and legends based less on fact on more on embellishment and that seems to the true of the realm of basketball betting as well. While the there are several teams from mid-level NCAA odds conferences that have penetrated deep into the top 25 college basketball betting don’t believe for a minute that these teams are legitimate contenders for the NCAA odd title.
The beauty of the college basketball betting tournament is that once the March Madness begins, the slate is wiped clean and everyone is on equal footing. It’s put up or shut up time and every team in the NCAA odds has ample opportunity to prove themselves worthy of their invite to the Big Dance.
And so too do teams like #8 ranked New Mexico, #14 ranked BYU, #18 ranked Gonzaga and their kin have a chance to silence their critics and “just win, baby!”
But it won’t happen. Even if the computer driven RPI ranks these teams among the best in the land and their records sparkle, bloated with wins against basketball minnows, it’s all smoke and mirrors my friends.
The Mountain West, the WAC and other such mid-tier conferences simply aren’t on par with other conferences like the Big East, Big 12, Big 10 and so forth. Even if these highly ranked teams from the Mountain Time zone get through their first round opponent, which is likely, they’ll most likely be facing their toughest competition of the year in the second round of the tourney and that could be the death of their Rocky Mountain dreams.
