The Creighton Bluejays are a fine program, but San Diego State is the right NCAAB pick for Thursday’s March Madness opener.
Creighton Bluejays vs. San Diego State Aztecs
Thursday, March 17, 2022 – 07:27 PM EDT at Dickies Arena
You can’t call the Creighton Bluejays a Cinderella team anymore. This isn’t the team that made the regional semifinals of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament four times as an independent or even the one that bossed the Mountain Valley Conference in the Aughts.
Creighton joined the Big Six back in 2013 when they switched to the Big East, and they’re still knocking on that title door, reaching the Sweet Sixteen again last year for head coach Greg McDermott.
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Unfortunately for the Bluejays (20-10 SU, 16-14 ATS during the regular season), they’ve taken a step back this year, and they’ve got a tough First Round tilt coming up this Thursday against San Diego State (21-7 SU, 15-13 ATS), in the 8 vs. 9 matchups on your Midwest Region bracket.
Creighton opened as 2.5-point underdogs on the NCAAB odds board at Heritage Sports (visit our Heritage Sports Review), and that’s being generous to the Jays – if we’re reading the numbers right here at the ranch.
Drink Your Lean
Not to throw too much math at you here, but Ken Pomeroy has San Diego State (the 8-seed in this contest) ranked No. 22 overall on his efficiency charts, 4.68 points per 100 possessions better than No. 53 Creighton.
That works out to around SDSU –3 for your standard March Madness game with about two-thirds that many possessions; both the teams involved here run at a slow-to-medium pace that shouldn’t stray too far from that number.
Let’s call in some backup. FiveThirtyEight project San Diego State to win this contest 55 percent of the time, while ESPN’s Basketball Power Index is even more bullish on SDSU at 63.2 percent. Run those numbers through the dead-sexy BMR Odds Converter, and you get “fair” moneylines (no vig) of SDSU –122 and SDSU –172, respectively.
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San Diego State is priced at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review) at –140 on their March Madness lines as we go to press. We’ll call it a wash and say the computers give a slight lean towards the favorites, as suspected.
March Madness
While McDermott and the Bluejays have carved out a name for themselves in the Big East, San Diego State just might be the best team in the Mountain West Conference – even if they lost the MWC title game 53-52 to Boise State as 3-point favorites.
Head coach Brian Dutcher has revived this program since taking over in 2017, earning himself a reputation among insiders for his player development (see: Malachi Flynn).
It’s a bit strange to call the team from San Diego the “small-market” team in this matchup, ahead of the team based in Omaha, Nebraska, but that’s what happens when you put a mid-major program up against someone from the Big Six.
That’s also where you get a lot of your March Madness betting value, so bet accordingly, and may the sphere be with you all Tournament long.
NCAAB Pick: San Diego State -2.5 (-108) with Heritage Sports (visit our Heritage Sports Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
