Houston remains consensus favorite to cut down nets at home during Final Four

The NFL season is over and we’re halfway through February, which means the sports betting spotlight now shines on college basketball. It also means that a handful of teams have begun to separate themselves from the pack in the college basketball national championship odds market.

Or at least that’s usually the case. This year? Totally different story.

With Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament less than a month away, not a single team has odds shorter than +600 (6-to-1) to win the 2022-23 title. Not only that, but at one sportsbook, more than a dozen squads sport national championship odds of +2500 (25-to-1) or less.

That’s not to say there isn’t a consensus favorite — there is, and it happens to be a school based in the same city that hosts this year’s Final Four.

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However, for the first time in recent memory, there is no clear-cut betting favorite heading into the final two weeks of the regular season. It truly is a “pick a team, any team” crapshoot. With that in mind, here’s an updated look at college basketball national championship odds and action.

Odds updated as of 4 p.m. ET on Feb. 14.

With the ever-popular transfer portal, a slew of coaching changes and a lot of top-flight talent leaving for the NBA, most college basketball experts predicted this would be an extremely difficult season to handicap.

To that point, when BetMGM first opened its 2022-23 college basketball national championship futures market, only one team had single-digit odds: Duke at +800.

Fast-forward to mid-February, and Duke has fallen to a 50-to-1 long shot at BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbook (and 60-to-1 at FanDuel).

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Fellow college hoops blue blood Kentucky also is 50-to-1 at BetMGM and Caesars, while preseason No. 1 North Carolina (last year’s title runner-up) is 40-to-1 at both books. Both schools are out to 100-to-1 at FanDuel.

Then there’s perennial Final Four contender Michigan State, which has national title odds ranging from +8000 (Caesars) to +12500 (FanDuel).

All four traditional powers have longer odds at BetMGM than Marquette (+3500), Saint Mary’s, Creighton and Xavier (all +3000).

It has been that zany of a season.

And as the jumbled national championship odds suggest, no true dominant force has emerged as the team to beat this season.

Four different squads have played musical chairs with the No. 1 spot in the national rankings: North Carolina (three weeks), Purdue (seven), Houston (four) and Alabama, which climbed to the top of the pack this week for the first time in 20 years.

What’s more, entering play on Tuesday, only 10 of 363 Division I teams had fewer than five losses. Those teams: No. 2 Houston (23-2), No. 1 Alabama (23-3), No. 3. Purdue (23-3), Charleston (25-3), No. 8 Arizona (22-4), No. 7 Virginia (19-4), No. 4 UCLA (21-4), Southern Miss (23-4), Oral Roberts (23-4) and U.C. Santa Barbara (20-4).

While no single team has proven to be a cut above the rest, one league can claim bragging rights as being the best in the land.

That would be the Big 12, a 10-team conference that occupies nearly 25% of the spots in this week’s rankings (six of 25).

The Big 12 also has strong representation in the highly respected KenPom rankings: Kansas (No. 8), Texas (9), Baylor (11), Iowa State (18), Kansas State (21), TCU (23), West Virginia (24) and Oklahoma State (27) are in the top 30.

Four of those squads — defending national champion Kansas (+1300), 2020-21 champ Baylor (+1400), Texas (+2500) and TCU (+3500) — are among the top 13 national championship betting favorites at FanDuel.

By comparison, the Big Ten with Purdue (+850) and Indiana (+2000); the Pac-12 with UCLA (+1200) and Arizona (+1500); the SEC with Alabama (+850) and Tennessee (+2500); and the Big East with Creighton (+2500) and UConn (+3000) each have two members among that top 13.

Stretch it out to the top 20 favorites at FanDuel, and six Big 12 teams are represented, with Iowa State (+4000) and Kansas State (+4500) entering the picture.

The only other conference with more than two is the Big East, with Marquette (+4000) and Xavier (+4500) joining Creighton and UConn.

Want some definitive proof that no team this season has captured the attention of the college basketball wagering world? Just check the betting splits at BetMGM.

As of Monday morning, only one team has attracted more than 8% of the bets at the sportsbook: Kansas.

The defending champion Jayhawks are responsible for 9% of the national title wagers at BetMGM. Purdue is second in tickets (7.4%), followed by Houston (5.8%), Arizona (5.1%) and North Carolina (4.8%).

When it comes to handle, though, another Big 12 team is king: Nearly 16% of all national championship dollars wagered at BetMGM are on the Longhorns. That’s obviously the result of one sizable wager, as only 2.7% of BetMGM’s tickets back Texas.

Falling in line behind the Longhorns on the money side of things at BetMGM are Kansas (8.3%), Purdue (6.8%), Houston (6.5%), UConn (6.4%), and Arizona and North Carolina (both 5.5%).

When it comes to longer shots down BetMGM’s college basketball odds board, two teams stand out. Kansas State (+4000 odds) is 10th in bets at 3.3%, while Kentucky (+5000) is 11th in handle at 2.8%.

Food for thought: Since the 2009-10 season, only four national champions entered March with longer odds than +1000: UConn in 2010-11 (+3000) and 2013-14 (+7500), Villanova in 2015-16 (+1225), and Kansas last season (+1400).

The Inquirer is not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site. We provide this information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only.