March Madness betting on Saturday takes us to the Elite 8 matchup between Butler and Kansas State at the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City.  Butler will be looking to advance to the Final Four after knocking off a #1 seed with their Thursday night upset of Syracuse.  Kansas State is a #2 seed and advanced to this round by outlasting Xavier in double overtime (a brutal pointspread push for those of us who had Xavier as +5 underdogs).

MARCH MADNESS–BUTLER VS. KANSAS STATE

Can Butler pull another upset and knock off Kansas State?  There’s plenty of people who think they can, and based on my power ratings alone the pointspread on this game looks to be about right.  KSU was a pointspread monster this season while Butler was a fairly average ATS team.  Butler went 15-20 ATS overall, compared to a solid 21-9 ATS mark for Kansas State.  KSU was also 18-6 ATS as a favorite, 9-2 ATS in non-conference games and an exceptional 17-6 ATS against teams with winning records.  Butler was just 7-8 ATS out of conference and 11-13 ATS against teams with winning records.

More significantly, there’s some matchup dynamics at work in this game that Butler didn’t have to deal with against Syracuse.  The Orange’s depth was well known to be their biggest liability heading into the tournament, and that worked firmly in Butler’s favor to pull the upset.  Kansas State has depth, four double digit scorers and good size and physicality.  So far in the tournament, the Bulldogs haven’t faced a team that had all of these qualities–UTEP had size but wasn’t a very sound team fundamentally.  Murray State had fundamentals, but lacked size.  Syracuase had talent, but lacked depth.  Now Butler will have to face a team that will get physical with them, won’t wear down, will play good defense, and can score in a variety of ways.  KSU won’t win in a blowout, but we think they’ll be able to cover this pointspread.

PLAY KANSAS STATE -4 OVER BUTLER