My favorite team as of a week ago leads the Midwest Region, but when Marcus Sasser left the AAC semi-final with a groin injury, the outlook became darker for Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars. With Sasser at full strength, this is clearly the team to beat in the Midwest, and possibly the entire tournament. At +1.35/1, it seems like Vegas anticipates the star guard being available for the #1 seed.

Another team with serious potential to reach a final 4 in its home state is the Texas Longhorns (3.5/1). UT has come on incredibly strong to win the Big 12, destroying rival KU twice in the process.

There is a distant gap from the 2 seed on down, with 4 seeded Indiana, 3 seeded Xavier, and 7 seeded A&M all coming in with 10/1 odds. Those are three teams with potential to either make a deep run, or flame out in the first round.

I was high on Indiana for a while, but their showing in the Big 10 tournament gave me little to no confidence in their ability to play tourny style hoops. 6th seeded Iowa State has tournament experience, and potential to win a couple of games to make a run. At 15/1, this is a squad that can defend well and out tough most teams in this region, so would not be opposed to taking a shot at that value.

5th seeded Miami is 20/1, and looked strong until losing their starting center. If they are forced to face IU in the 2nd round, that loss will be trouble with IU’s all-american starting center. With all of the uncertainty below the 2 line, I will likely be going chalk in this region. Houston has been dominant all year long, albeit in a weaker conference and Texas has come on extremely strong as of late.

One of those teams will get a home game in the final 4, and we should get an epic battle to figure out who. I’ll take the value and go with Texas to come through the Midwest.