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College basketball player prop – Louisville’s Terrance Edwards Jr. has been over 18.5 points four of his past five games. However, he has been a lower efficiency scorer over the season after transferring from James Madison.
Now, Edwards faces Duke’s elite defense, ranked 4th in my adjusted points per possession. Duke will lose some rim protection without superstar Cooper Flagg, but that shouldn’t affect the numbers of a wing player like Edwards.
A simple model based on conference numbers projects 14.8 points for Edwards against Duke. Assuming some regression from his past five games, there is value in Terrance Edwards under 18.5 points, -110 at FanDuel (game tips at 8:30pm Eastern).
Interactive bracket with win probabilities – Based on ESPN’s bracket prediction on Friday, March 14, you can play with this interactive bracket in two ways:
- Hover over a node to see the probability that a team wins that game.
- Hover over a team to see their probability to advance through the tournament.
These win probabilities are based on my college basketball team rankings that take margin of victory and adjust for schedule. Surprisingly, Florida has the highest win probability (28.5%) over Duke and Auburn.
Check out The Power Rank’s interactive bracket with NCAA tournament win probabilities.
How to think contrarian – If you’re in a small pool (10 or fewer people), use my college basketball team rankings to fill out your bracket. My calculations have shown this favorites strategy gives you the best odds to win small pools.
However, you can increase your odds to win an intermediate sized pool (20 to 100 people) with a contrarian strategy. You want to pick a team with a high win probability but that is not getting picked by others in your pool.
If this contrarian team wins, you get 32 points that not many others will have. Your solid choices with my numbers in earlier rounds should carry you to victory.
In my Bracket Audio Course, I give an example of how this worked with Virginia in 2019 and Duke in 2010. This is part of The Power Rank 2025 Bracket Advice and Course, a product whose price goes up from $29 after the field is released on Sunday night.
Daily video series – I’m posting a video every day on teams in the 2025 NCAA tournament. To be on brand, I’m calling it 10-Nugget March.
Every minute long video gives a nugget on a team. There are some on contenders like Houston and Florida but I will also post intriguing teams like D2 Drake (coming today). Check out 10-Nugget March on X.
NFL humor – “He’s basically you but goofier.” Brandon Carney on signing Daniel Jones to compete with Anthony Richardson.
I thought more of you would enjoy that football video, but I also enjoyed this 2:08 video on SEC basketball by Josh Mancuso.
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