College basketball best bets and projections

We’ve finally made it to the weekend! Sweet 16 action is underway for men’s and women’s tournaments, and the T Shoe Index has you covered on projections for all of the games heading into Friday and Saturday night. Sunday’s games will be posted sometime Saturday afternoon, so follow me on X @TShoeIndex to see those, as well as any bets that I add to my card in the meantime. Here are the projections for Friday and Saturday tournament games.

We’ve cashed both women’s bets I’ve given out this week, so I’m definitely hoping to continue that momentum, as well as get involved on the men’s side as well.

Follow me on X, @TShoeIndex, to get my women’s plays as soon as I make them and before the lines move in response.

Compare my odds to the college basketball odds (Vegas odds) and also take a look at the college basketball betting splits for additional info.

As a refresher, the T Shoe Index (TSI) is my proprietary rating system that I use for college football, NFL, men’s and women’s college basketball, and WNBA. It is a tempo and opponent-adjusted rating that allows us to answer the question, “How many points would team A be expected to score and allow vs Team B”, based on a myriad of statistical factors. 

Here are the TSI projections for Friday, March 29th and Saturday, March 30th:

How to read this sheet: the “TSI Projected Spread” is the projected point margin based on TSI ratings. If the number is positive, that indicates Team 1 is projected to win by that margin, if the number is negative, that indicates Team 2 is projected to win by that margin.

Men’s

Team	Team	TSI	TSI O/U
Alabama	Clemson	0.8	165.2
Connecticut	Illinois	9.7	154.9
Houston	Duke	-0.2	137.3
Marquette	NC State	1.7	149.7
Purdue	Gonzaga	7.2	157.4
Tennessee	Creighton	0.3	148.6

Bets:

NC State +7

Duke +4

Women’s

Team	Team	TSI	TSI O/U
Connecticut	Duke	11.2	131.4
Iowa	Colorado	9.7	157.9
Minnesota	North Dakota State	-2.9	135.1
North Carolina A&T	Troy	-0.8	144.9
Notre Dame	Oregon State	3.7	134.5
Purdue Fort Wayne	Saint Louis	4.6	141.2
South Carolina	Indiana	16.2	141.4
Southern California	Baylor	0.5	135.1
Stanford	NC State	5.3	136.5
Texas	Gonzaga	0.8	142.9
UCLA	Louisiana State	-5.5	146.6
Vermont	Colgate	6.8	117.7
Wyoming	South Dakota	2.4	125.0

Bets:

Gonzaga +5.5

Connecticut/Duke Over 126.5

Here’s how TSI has each remaining team power rated:

Men’s

Team	Power
Connecticut	27.7
Purdue	22.3
Duke	20.7
Houston	20.5
Illinois	18.0
Tennessee	16.6
Creighton	16.3
Gonzaga	15.1
Alabama	14.5
Marquette	12.8
Clemson	13.7
NC State	11.1

Women’s

Team	Power
South Carolina	34.8
Connecticut	29.5
LSU	26.8
Texas	26.1
Iowa	26
Gonzaga	25.3
Stanford	23
UCLA	21.3
Notre Dame	20.7
Indiana	18.6
Duke	18.2
NC State	17.6
USC	17.4
Oregon State	17
Baylor	16.8
Colorado	16.3