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Happy Friday! We’ve made it to the end of another workweek — and if you’re waiting for March’s signature Madness to start as the calendar changes months over the weekend, you might already be late. We’ve got NFL prospects rising on the basis of their Combine showings, contract rumors flying ahead of next Tuesday’s deadline to issue franchise tags to players, and a lot of in-game action to follow as well. That’s especially true in college basketball, as Selection Sunday for the NCAA tournament is just two weeks from this Sunday — we’ll have more about the teams fighting to make the tourney down below. Including the big hoops action, here’s what we’re watching out for this weekend:
🗓️ THE WEEKEND DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
Friday (2/27)
🏈 NFL: Draft Combine
🏀 NBA: Cavs (30%) at Pistons (70%)* - 7 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 NBA: Knicks (74%) at Bucks (26%) - 8 p.m.
🏀 NBA: Nuggets (25%) at Thunder (75%) - 9:30 p.m. (ESPN)
🏒 NHL: Sabres (49%) at Panthers (51%) - 7 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Golden Knights (48%) at Capitals (52%) - 7 p.m. (NHL NET)
🏒 NHL: Wild (43%) at Mammoth (57%) - 9 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Miami (OH) (89%) at W. Michigan (11%) - 6 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Michigan (55%) at Illinois (45%) - 8 p.m.
⚽ EPL: Wolverhampton (21%) vs. Aston Villa (54%) - 3 p.m.
⛳ Golf: Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches (Nicolas Echavarria 17% to win)
Saturday (2/28)
🏈 NFL: Draft Combine
🏀 NBA: Blazers (32%) at Hornets (68%) - 1 p.m.
🏀 NBA: Rockets (62%) at Heat (38%) - 3:30 p.m. (Prime)
🏀 NBA: Lakers (60%) at Warriors (40%) - 8:30 p.m. (ABC)
🏒 NHL: Red Wings (38%) at Hurricanes (62%) - 7 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Capitals (42%) at Canadiens (58%) - 7 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Sabres (33%) at Lightning (67%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Virginia (18%) at Duke (82%) - 12 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Kansas (25%) at Arizona (75%) - 4 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Texas Tech (24%) at Iowa State (76%) - 4 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Alabama (37%) at Tennessee (63%) - 6 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Arkansas (20%) at Florida (80%) - 8:30 p.m.
🏀 WBB: Maryland (34%) at Michigan (66%) - 2:30 p.m.
⚽ EPL: AFC Bournemouth (55%) vs. Sunderland (21%) - 7:30 a.m.
⚽ EPL: Newcastle United (57%) vs. Everton (21%) - 10 a.m.
⛳ Golf: Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches
🥊 Boxing: Emanuel Navarrete (41%) vs. Eduardo Núñez (59%) - 8 p.m. (unified junior lightweight title)
🥊 UFC Fight Night: Brandon Moreno (67%) vs. Lone’er Kavanagh (33%) - 8 p.m.
Sunday (3/1)
🏈 NFL: Draft Combine
🏀 NBA: Spurs (58%) at Knicks (42%) - 1 p.m. (ABC)
🏀 NBA: T-Wolves (47%) at Nuggets (53%) - 3:30 p.m. (ABC)
🏀 NBA: Pistons (64%) at Magic (36%) - 6 p.m.
🏀 NBA: Sixers (39%) at Celtics (61%) - 8 p.m. (NBC)
🏀 NBA: Thunder (81%) at Mavs (19%) - 8 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Golden Knights (54%) at Penguins (46%) - 1 p.m. (TNT)
🏒 NHL: Panthers (55%) at Islanders (45%) - 6:30 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 MBB: Purdue (68%) at Ohio State (32%) - 1:30 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Michigan State (63%) at Indiana (37%) - 3:45 p.m.
🏀 WBB: Texas (83%) at Alabama (17%) - 12 p.m.
🏀 WBB: Duke (54%) at North Carolina (46%) - 12 p.m.
🏀 WBB: Ohio State (44%) at Michigan State (56%) - 12 p.m.
🏀 WBB: South Carolina (83%) at Kentucky (17%) - 2 p.m.
⚽ EPL: Arsenal (61%) vs. Chelsea (17%) - 11:30 a.m.
🏁 NASCAR: DuraMAX Grand Prix (Shane Van Gisbergen 43% to win) - 3:30 p.m. (Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas)
🏁 IndyCar: Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (Álex Palou 25% to win) - 12 p.m. (Streets of St. Petersburg, Florida)
⛳ Golf: Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
Closing statements
By the end of the weekend, we will officially be in March — and that means the month’s Madness is not far away. For a certain number of NCAA hoops squads, that’s a good thing: locked-in tournament teams like Duke and Michigan, for instance, can dispense with the formalities of the last few regular-season games and their conference tournaments without worry about their NCAA tourney fates (even if performance in those games does matter for seeding purposes within the bracket). For other teams, though, every game is life-or-death for their postseason future.
According to the prediction markets, 16 teams have a 99% chance to make the first round of the NCAA men’s tournament, with another nine sitting at 95% or higher, and an additional nine at 87% or higher. If you’re keeping count, that’s already 34 teams from seven different conferences that are in at least solid shape — more than half of the 64 teams that make the bracket. (Excluding the First Four play-in games, that is — which the market is doing by specifying odds to make the round of 64.)
At the other end of the spectrum, ESPN resident bracketologist Joe Lunardi is calling for 24 conferences to send just a single bid to the tourney via their conference championship. That, plus the seven automatic bids from projected multi-bid conferences, leaves just 37 slots available for at-large entries by the NCAA selection committee, of which 27 provisionally belong to teams from our “solid” group above. The rest of the scraps are being fought over by so-called bubble teams, those whose tournament odds are uncertain right now — and for whom the remaining few weeks leading up to Selection Sunday on March 15 matter a lot.
Here are the prediction markets’ most likely bracket entries among teams from Lunardi’s projected multi-bid conferences that are below 87% odds (but at or above 10%) to make the round of 64:
There are some interesting differences between the prediction markets and the statistical forecast models. The former see Louisville as much less of a lock than the latter, which uniformly think the Cardinals have a 99% to 100% chance of getting at least an at-large bid (not a 76% chance of making the tourney at all). The models are also higher on a team like Ohio State or Indiana — and perhaps the Big Ten in general, and the idea they might get as many as 10 teams in the tourney — than the markets. And the markets are a lot higher than the models on TCU’s chances, giving the Horned Frogs a 72% tournament probability when the consensus of the forecast odds is that TCU would only have a 38% chance in the absence of a Big 12 tournament title.
And then there is the elephant in the room: Miami of Ohio. They’re not listed in our chart, since Lunardi sees their Mid-American Conference as a single-bid conference, but Miami’s run at an undefeated regular season — they’re three wins away! — is fueling their 79% market odds to make the tourney. And yet, they may not be favorites to win their conference, which would throw them into the at-large pool to make a case with what would be a near-perfect record… but also what would be by far the worst schedule strength for an at-large team since 1999-2000.
It’s still hard to imagine the RedHawks missing out at, say, 33-1. But at this stage of the season, for this group of teams, March Madness is already underway — even as the calendar is barely flipping to March itself.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
The “Atlanta Flu”
Yesterday, the Atlanta Hawks announced an interesting homage in the works: they are planning a “Magic City Tribute Night” on March 16 to celebrate the impact of Atlanta’s (in)famous strip club. As part of the event, the team is leaning into the club’s status as a local institution that has influenced both hip-hop and basketball culture. To the latter point, it gained a reputation for causing visiting players to mysteriously come down with a case of the “Atlanta Flu” when they visited town to party — or at least to consume a lot of lemon pepper wings. The data confirms some level of truth to this. While Atlanta doesn’t outperform expectations at home (based on expected wins via Elo ratings) quite as much as high-altitude Denver and Salt Lake City, it has ranked No. 7 in home-court advantage since 1995, when Magic City began truly taking hold as a staple of Atlanta nightlife.
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏁 “Why Connor Zilisch is Shane van Gisbergen’s biggest road-course threat” by me
⚾ “The secret market dictating World Baseball Classic rosters” by Eben Novy-Williams
🏀 “The Undefeated Team College Basketball Doesn’t Want” by Michael Weinreb
⚾ “Inside The Atlanta Braves 2025 Earnings Report (And Why A Sale Might Be Coming)” by Joe Pompliano
🏈 “If the Las Vegas Raiders Don’t Trade Down From the First Overall Pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, They’ll Regret It” by Freddie deBoer
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Monday (3/2)
🏀 NBA: Celtics at Bucks
🏀 NBA: Clippers at Warriors
🏒 NHL: Red Wings at Predators
🏒 NHL: Blue Jackets at Rangers
🏀 MBB: Duke at NC State
🏀 MBB: Iowa State at Arizona
Tuesday (3/3)
🏀 NBA: Spurs at Sixers
🏀 NBA: Suns at Kings
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Devils
🏒 NHL: Lightning at Wild
⚽ EPL: AFC Bournemouth vs. Brentford
Wednesday (3/4)
🏀 NBA: Thunder at Knicks
🏀 NBA: Hawks at Bucks
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Devils
🏒 NHL: Blues at Kraken
⚽ EPL: Aston Villa vs. Chelsea
⚽ EPL: Newcastle United vs. Manchester United
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.