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It’s the first Tuesday of March, and spring is in the air. That can only mean two things: baseball is ramping up for a new season in spring training, and college basketball is nearing March Madness. With the former, we’re excited for the upcoming World Baseball Classic, which starts Thursday, and we’ll give you a proper preview of the odds there later this week. But for the latter, today’s newsletter will focus on the men’s and women’s conference tournaments, which officially got underway last night in the Horizon League with Cleveland State beating IU Indy 101-93 to advance. (Shoutout to all the true sickos who were following, and perhaps trading on, a Horizon League play-in round game between the Nos. 10 and 11 seeds — we salute you.) For what to watch next, here are the big games happening in the world of sports today:
🗓️ TONIGHT’S DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
NBA:
🏀 Pistons (57%) at Cavs (43%)* - 7 p.m.
🏀 Knicks (58%) at Raptors (42%) - 7:30 p.m.
🏀 Spurs (74%) at Sixers (26%) - 8 p.m. (NBC)
🏀 Suns (78%) at Kings (22%) - 11 p.m. (NBC)
NHL:
🏒 Golden Knights (43%) at Sabres (57%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Panthers (51%) at Devils (49%) - 7 p.m. (TNT)
🏒 Lightning (56%) at Wild (44%) - 9:30 p.m. (TNT)
🏒 Avalanche (57%) at Ducks (43%) - 10 p.m. (ESPN+)
College Hoops:
🏀 TCU (18%) at Texas Tech (82%) - 7 p.m. (FS1)
🏀 Toledo (20%) at Miami (OH) (80%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏀 Men’s conference tournaments: Horizon League first round; Patriot League first round; Sun Belt first round
🏀 Women’s conference tournaments: Atlantic Sun first round; Sun Belt first round
Soccer:
⚽ AFC Bournemouth (37%) vs. Brentford (37%) - 2:30 p.m. (Peacock)
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
Fill out your conference brackets
If you care at all about college basketball — or even just want to know when you need to fill out your entry for the annual office NCAA tournament pool — then the date you should have circled on this year’s calendar is March 15, Selection Sunday, when the men’s and women’s brackets are finally revealed. But if you want to know about who you’ll be picking, it’s useful to watch the conference tournaments leading up to the selection as well.
The women’s conference tournaments begin this week, with the power conferences wrapping by the weekend and the smaller conferences finishing up next week. (The ACC, Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 all wrap on Sunday, March 8, while the Big East crowns its champion on Monday, March 9.) We don’t have prediction markets on those tournaments yet, but if you want to approximate who is probably favored to win each of them, here’s a rundown of the leading teams in each conference according to Bart Torvik’s power ratings:
Meanwhile, the men’s side goes in basically the opposite order — smaller conferences get their tournaments underway this week, while the heavy hitters (SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, and Big East) will have the stage to themselves next week. And indeed, we do have prediction markets for the tournaments just now getting underway. Here are the leading favorites to win and punch a ticket to The Big Dance, where available:
Keep in mind that these conferences are practically all expected to send just one team to the NCAA tournament — the conference champion — with a very outside chance that Belmont could get in as an at-large selection even if they lose the MVC. So for the teams in this tier of conferences, the high-pressure knockout phase of March Madness has essentially already begun.
Finally, there are the other, larger conferences, which don’t have market odds yet because they have not fully wrapped their regular-season schedules and seedings yet. So we can do the same exercise as above for the leading men’s team by conference, using Torvik’s power ratings once again:
The better of these conferences will send numerous teams to the NCAA brackets — ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Big Ten and SEC sending 10 apiece (which would actually be a step down from last year’s 14-entry SEC) — so you’ll get to see plenty more of them even if they bow out early in the conference tourneys. But for the rest, it will be a pressure cooker to either win the conference tournament or at least make a case for the selection committee to call their name in under two weeks. Game on.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
Trae tossed
Who says you need to actually play in an NBA game to be ejected from it? Trae Young found out the two things are not mutually exclusive on Monday night, when he was tossed from the Washington Wizards’ game against the Houston Rockets for leaving the bench area during an on-court altercation between the two teams. Young, who was acquired from Atlanta via trade in January, has yet to actually play a game in DC — he’s actually slated to make his debut on Thursday — so for now his Wizards stint technically contains the league’s lowest possible ratio of games played to ejections this season: zero.
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “the night jokić stopped absorbing” by bang! NBA
🏈 “Winners and Losers of the NFL Combine: Offensive Positions” by Kevin Cole
🏈 “An NFL preseason power ranking based on win totals and futures” by Neil Greenberg
🏀 “Miami’s at-large case is not complicated (at least not yet)” by Eamonn Brennan
🏁 “Overtake Mode Explained: F1’s New Proximity-Based Power Boost” by Formula Reports
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Wednesday (3/4)
🏀 NBA: Thunder at Knicks
🏀 NBA: Hawks at Bucks
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Devils
🏒 NHL: Blues at Kraken
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC first round
⚽ EPL: Aston Villa vs. Chelsea
⚽ EPL: Newcastle United vs. Manchester United
Thursday (3/5)
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Rockets
🏀 NBA: Lakers at Nuggets
🏒 NHL: Sabres at Penguins
🏒 NHL: Islanders at Kings
🏀 MBB: Michigan at Iowa
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC second round
⚽ EPL: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Crystal Palace
⛳ Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational
Friday (3/6)
🏀 NBA: Mavs at Celtics
🏀 NBA: Clippers at Spurs
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Red Wings
🏀 MBB: Miami (OH) at Ohio
🏀 WBB: ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC quarterfinals; Big East first round
⛳ Golf: Arnold Palmer Invitational
🧠 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.