College basketball

Can the state of Kentucky make it a three-peat?

The Wildcats won the national championship in 2012, Louisville took the 2013 crown on Monday night, and now The Greek has Kentucky listed as the 3-to-1 favorites for next year’s national championship.

College basketball’s best offense (Michigan) will take on the nation’s best defense (Louisville) in the NCAA Tournament championship game on Monday, a title-game matchup that looks as appealing as any in recent memory.

Louisville opened as a 3.5-point favorite and is now listed at -4. The total is set at 137.5.

Both Louisville and Michigan are favored in the Final Four this week, and if the two teams meet in the championship game, the Cardinals would be listed as 5-point favorites to cut down the nets.

Read on to see point spreads for all four possible title-game matchups.

The Greek released their initial 2013-14 college hoops futures odds a couple days ago, and we agreed with some and disagreed on others.

So, with that, here’s our way-too-early 2013-14 college basketball Top 25 for the upcoming season.

Before the 2013 NCAA Tournament began, we advised that it might be better to opt against taking futures odds and instead use the rolling money line calculator to scrape out a little more value. “This way,” we wrote, “you can easily see how an early-round upset would affect the overall payout.”

How did that strategy play out? Read on to find out.

As the final horn sounded, Brittney Griner slapped two hands against the floor, Kim Mulkey unsuccessfully tried to rip off her jacket, and somewhere, a wise bettor with a hunch pounded his chest and celebrated the unlikeliest victory in college basketball history.

Louisville 82, Baylor 81.

They say the best coaches shine the brightest when given extra amounts of time to prepare for an opponent, and Rick Pitino is perhaps the best college basketball coach ever in the Sweet 16.

So far, so good.

Before the 2013 NCAA Tournament started, the odds of four different Big Ten teams all reaching the Final Four were 250-to-1 at William Hill in Las Vegas, and it was a great opening weekend for the best conference in America.

The game with the most potential for excitement in the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32 will be the very first one, a matchup between 4th-seeded Michigan and 5-seed VCU, which tips off today at 9:15 a.m. PT.

Read on to see all the lines with openers.

The women’s NCAA Tournament will begin on Saturday with a field of 64 teams, and 60 of them have a 0.0 percent chance of cutting down the nets. The first four rounds are a waste of time, an inevitability, and always has been.

Read on to see the handful of teams that might actually win.