March Madness is upon us and with it all the chaos that brackets bring.
Whether you're building your bracket for the first time, or are a veteran of NCAA Tournament pools merely looking for an edge with the help of Las Vegas or Nate Silver, there is no wrong way to fill out your bracket.
That said, there's plenty of gambling to do on March Madness that goes beyond the bracket. Below you can check out our best bets for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
No. 10 Oklahoma (+2) over No. 7 Rhode Island (Thursday, 12:15 p.m. CBS)
Oklahoma is not the type of team I would typically want to pick in this spot. They lost 11 of their final 15 games of the season and were an altogether unconvincing bubble team that snuck into the tournament.
But the thing that sets them apart is Trae Young, who will be the best player on the court by a pretty good margin. Rhode Island is a solid team that put together an impressive 16-game win streak in the middle of the season, but they don't come into the tournament that hot either. They lost three of their last five games, including dropping the Atlantic 10 championship to Davidson in gut-wrenching fashion.
I want to get my gambling started early in the day, so we're going to take the best player in the country and not overthink this one.
No. 3 Tennessee (-12) over No. 14 Wright State (Thursday, 12:40 p.m. truTV)
Of the college basketball I've seen this year, Tennessee is one of the few teams that's impressed me every time I've seen them. Of their 25 wins, ten have been by more than 12 points, and have come against teams as good or better than Wright State. I'm looking for the Vols to roll through this one.
No. 16 Penn (+13.5) over No. 1 Kansas (Thursday, 2 p.m. TBS)
The Ivy League championship was one of the most enthralling games of basketball I watched all year. Harvard jumped to a 30-17 lead with five minutes left in the first half, only for the Quakers to catch fire to finish the half on a 17-2 run to take a 34-32 lead into halftime.
To open the second half, Penn scored another 11 before Harvard got their first bucket, making it a 28-2 run all told.
No 16-seed has ever scored a victory in the history of the NCAA Tournament beyond a play-in game, but the Quakers can shoot their way back into any game in just a few minutes, and I like them to give the Jayhawks a scare in the first round.
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