The 2023 NCAA Tournament has already begun with the “First Four” games taking place on Tuesday & Wednesday, but the real action begins when we can obsessively track our brackets and bets on Thursday afternoon. Bettors have already been lining up their top plays for the week, with the March Madness betting trends showing the Furman Paladins are a popular play against Virginia in the first round.
March Madness Betting: Bettors Love Furman Over Virginia
Per BetMGM data analyst John Ewing, the top March Madness public bets for the first round are on Arkansas -1.5 over Illinois (74% of bets), Furman +5.5 (73% of bets), Louisiana (+10.5 of bets) against Tennessee, Northwestern -1.5 over Boise State (67% of bets), Houston -19.5 over Northern Kentucky (63% of bets), UNC Asheville +19.5 against UCLA (63% of bets) and Penn State +3.5 against Texas A&M (63% of bets).
Furman (27-7) is a popular Cinderella based on their high level of play throughout the regular season. They also have an extremely experienced group centered around senior stars Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson. The Paladins continued their dominance in the Southern Conference by beating Chattanooga in the Conference Championship game last week, 88-79. Slawson led the way with 20 points, with Bothwell adding 17 in that contest.
The Paladins will certainly have their hands full playing against Virginia’s defensive, slow style of play. But they have the firepower to play with a Virginia squad that rarely blows out opponents.
“The more you watch a team, you get a feel for them, and there’s a reason why they’ve been so good for so many years,” Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said of Furman, per Augusta Free Press. “That program has been established, and they really play the right way. They’re a veteran team, player of the year and the league leading scorer in the conference, first team, they have a very good point guard, four guards, they can get it down the floor, shoot it well, but run good stuff and play hard defensively. And, you know, again, with a couple guys, I think a couple guys came back for their fifth year, they’re a veteran team, and they just, they they’ve played well, and you can see it and there.
“You get to this NCAA Tournament, there’s so many good teams, I think, as the years go on, the teams get better, as we talked about, because of the transfer rule and even at the fifth year and all that stuff, and they do a lot of good stuff. And so, they’ll challenge you in a lot of ways. So just, respect grew watching them and knew that going into it, but you can see why they’ve been successful, not just this year, over the years.”
There has been a lot of buzz about Furman leading up to their first-round matchup against Virginia. And based on the latest March Madness betting trends, a lot of fans out there will have an advantage in their brackets if Furman can pull off the upset on Thursday.
Readers should check out OddsShopper tools to find the best value throughout the NCAA Tournament!
