2025 March Madness preview: How to bet on No. 1 seeds Duke, Florida Auburn, Houston
The field for the 2025 NCAA Tournament is set and, if the selection committee is to be believed, it should run through Auburn.The Tigers (28-5) earned the top overall seed thanks to a stellar regular season that saw them top the ultra-competitive SEC. Auburn may have fallen short in the SEC Tournament, but its resume was already strong enough to vault them ahead of the other No.1 seeds in the field.The Duke Blue Devils (31-3) were tabbed as the second-overall seed, with Houston (30-4) and Florida (30-4) nabbing the other two No.
1 seeds in the 68-team field. Twenty-five of the past 39 champions were a No.1 seed and last year’s championship featured two number-ones in UConn and Purdue, so history tells us to ignore these heavyweights at your own peril if you’re playing in pools. But which heavyweight should you build your strategy around? And which should you stay away from? Let’s answer those questions below:They may be the top seed in the field, but Auburn is the third-favorite to win the NCAA Tournament behind Duke and Florida. It may sound counterintuitive for the “best” team in the bracket to be the third-favorite, but it’s worth noting that the Tigers were 30/1 to win the National Championship when this market opened, and are nowhere near as popular a team as Duke when it comes to the betting public.The Tigers are ranked as the No.
4 seed in KenPom’s power rankings, but the difference between Auburn and the three teams ahead of it is negligible.Throw in a less troublesome path than a couple of the other No.1 seeds and it feels safe to jot down Bruce Pearl’s Tigers for a deep run in your bracket.The Blue Devils were the wire-to-wire betting favorite to win the national hampionship, though their odds did drift a little when Cooper Flagg got hurt early in the ACC Tournament. Duke still managed to win the ACC, and Flagg is expected to feature in the Blue Devils’ first-round game. The Blue Devils went 21-10 against the spread (ATS) and ent...