March Madness betting action resumes on Thursday and we’ll get you ready with our analysis and selections on all 8 ‘Sweet 16′ games.  Not all of them will offer good wagering value, but we’ll tell you which ones do. We’ll start with an unlikely matchup between Kentucky and Cornell.  Check back often as we’ll be updating frequently with more games along with our selections in the NHL and NBA.  Everyone knows about SEC champion Kentucky and their presence at this stage of the tournament is no surprise.  What is surprising is their opponent–Ivy League entrant Cornell.  The Big Red got past Temple in the first round and followed up that performance by completely dominating Wisconsin.  Kentucky, meanwhile, had little trouble with either of their first two opponents, beating East Tennessee State and Wake Forest by a combined 59 point margin.

MARCH MADNESS–CORNELL VS. KENTUCKY:

You have to respect this Cornell team and their wins over Temple and Wisconsin were no fluke.  There’s any number of sharp associates of mine who think they can hang with Kentucky here.  The Big Red have great pointspread credentials as an underdog (5-2 SU/6-1 ATS) and in their games outside of the Ivy League (16-3 SU/11-3 ATS).  They’re also 9-3 SU/7-4 ATS against teams with winning records.  Unfortunately, we look for their March Madness run to end here as this is the worst possible matchup for Cornell.  Atlantic 10 champ Temple definitely deserved their bid, while Wisconsin was a marginal choice for tournament inclusion.  Both teams do share some similarity–they’re teams build around a ‘system’ and not teams that win with individual talent or athleticism.  Cornell is exceptional and finding weaknesses in ‘system’ teams and dismantling them.

The problem here is that’s really not possible with Kentucky.  The Wildcats don’t really have a ‘system’ so much as they just have a collection of insanely talented players led by future NBA first rounder John Wall.  Simply put, Kentucky has a significant edge in size, quickness and overall talent at every position on the floor.  They may have the most pure talent we’ve seen in the NCAA Tournament in years–they may not quite reach the level of teams like the early 80′s Houston ‘Phi Slama Jama’ teams led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, or the UNLV’s 1990 squad which was a borderline NBA team featuring Stacey Augmon, Greg Anthony and Larry Johnson but they’re definitely in the conversation.

Cornell is about as smart and fundamentally sound of a college hoop team as you’ll find and they performed reasonably well when stepping up in class this year.  Most significantly, they lost by 5 at Kansas easily covering the spread as +21 point underdogs.  Earlier in the season they beat Big East also-rans St. John’s and lost by 15 at Syracuse as +13 point underdogs.  They opened as +9′ dogs for this game and have been bet down to +8′.  There’s a good deal of doubt, however, as to their ability to slow the tempo against this Kentucky juggernaut.  Despite their reputation as a team based on individual talent, the Wildcats also do all of the important things well–they shoot the ball well, rebound well, get out in transition well and can play tough defense when the situation calls for it.   At the end of the day, our view is that Cornell’s fundamentals can go just so far and against a team with so many weapons they simply don’t have the talent or athleticism to keep this within the pointspread.

PLAY KENTUCKY -8′ OVER CORNELL