NCAAB March Madness Day 4 picks and best bets | Sunday, March 20

After a crazy first day in the NCAA Basketball tournament, Friday’s games were a little underwhelming. There was no shocking upset and outside of a couple games, everything went as expected. All eight winners will now advance to the Round of 32 in March Madness and the chaos should commence from there. There will be eight games this Sunday, so here are the best picks of the bunch.

Houston Cougars vs Illinois Fighting Illini

This is going to be a very good game. Houston is a five seed coming off a dominant win and has the history to go on a run in this tournament. They surprisingly made the Final Four last year and despite a lot of injuries in this season, Houston has still been great and has all the makings of going on another run. KenPom has them as the third best team in the tourney and while that is lofty, Houston could definitely surprise some people. Coach Kelvin Sampson has this team working hard and playing great basketball. While Illinois is good, Houston -4.5 is great value and they are the better team right now.

Illinois is coming off a hard fought win where they only led for 25 seconds in the game. The 13 seeded Chattanooga Mocs gave the 4 seed Illinois everything they had, but it wasn’t enough. It did, however, expose a lot of Illinois’ flaws. They have had susceptible guard play and despite having an elite big man in Kofi Cockburn, the guards can ruin their offensive focus. Houston is a tremendous defensive team and while they don’t have anyone as good as Cockburn, they can throw a lot of big bodies at him and slow him down.

Ohio St. Buckeyes vs Villanova Wildcats

The seven seeded Ohio St will take on the two seed Villanova in this matchup. Ohio St. limped into this tournament but has had some players return from injury and they finally are at full strength. The return of Kyle Young has been huge and he lifted them in the first round game. They played great defense and will come into this game feeling good. While they aren’t as talented on the top end as Villanova, they have a deeper team and will be able to manage their fatigue better. This will be each of these teams’ second game in three days, so that is very important.

Villanova has potentially the best point guard in college basketball in Collin Gillespie. He is a great player but Ohio St. has the guards to slow him down. If they can do so, Ohio St will not only cover but will have a great opportunity to win. Both of these teams play at a similar pace but the Buckeyes’ depth will be the difference. Take the Buckeyes plus the points and watch what should be a great back and forth matchup.

TCU Horned Frogs vs Arizona Wildcats

Arizona is one of the best teams in college basketball and substantially better than TCU. While TCU has had a good run and is hot right now, Arizona is just a class above and they should have their way with TCU. Their point guard Kerr Kriisa is questionable, but even without him, Arizona can easily win. Their back up Dalen Terry has been great and they will have the best player in this game. Benedict Mathurin is a proven stud and TCU will have no one to guard him.

This is simply just another step in Arizona’s path. They have legitimate title hopes and while TCU is talented, they will be happy to have made it this far. Arizona has the three best players in this game and that skill will be too much to overcome for the Horned Frogs. It is a big line, but Arizona can win this game by 20 and it makes the -9.5 a good bet.