Free Pick | NCAA | Wednesday | March 19

Nelly’s went 2-0 last night with NCAA & NIT wins!

We are 14-2 in the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament the past three seasons!

#710 Texas +3 over Xavier 8:10 PM CT

Landing in the First Four, Xavier was closer to the NCAA Tournament bubble than most expected as Musketeers climbed to 13-7 in Big East play with seven straight wins to close the regular season. Xavier lost a tight game in its only Big East tournament game however and finished just 3-6 vs. the Big East teams that also made the tournament. The last NCAA Tournament game for Xaiver was also against Texas losing in the Sweet 16 in 2023 in Kansas City in what was a wire-to-wire blowout that Texas led by as many as 24 points to advance in a 2/3 pairing. Xavier is commanding a slight favorite price with the draw this week getting to play close to home just over 50 miles north of Cincinnati. While none of the current Longhorns were on that 2023 team, Jerome Hunter and Zach Freemantle were on that Xavier team, though Freemantle missed the second half of that season due to injury, with both of those players missing all last season as well. In contrast to Xavier, Texas closed this season with losses in four of the final regular season games but played their way into the field with wins over Vanderbilt and Texas A&M in the SEC tournament. While the 6-12 record in the first season in the SEC was a struggle, seven losses came by single-digit margins and Texas has seven wins vs. NCAA Tournament teams compared to three for Xavier with Texas facing NCAA Tournament teams in 20 games this season, twice as many as the Musketeers faced. Xavier has appealing 3-point shooting and free throw percentages, but Texas is likely to lead this game in turnovers and rebounding while the Longhorns should have more interior scoring success with a significant size edge. Freemantle will face a tough matchup in being the go-to scorer for the Musketeers and Ryan Conwell will have a difficult time matching his excellent 3-point shooting success with Texas the fourth best 3-point defense in the difficult SEC. The case for Texas being in the tournament with 15 losses and a .333 winning percentage in conference play is debatable but Xavier almost certainly wouldn’t be in the field if they faced the schedule Texas saw. Texas has a pair of double-digit wins in its opening tournament games in the past two seasons for Rodney Terry, while Sean Miller did win his Round of 64 game for the Musketeers two seasons ago, it was a narrow comeback escape in a 3/14 matchup as a heavy favorite vs. Kennesaw State, while Xavier also lost its opening NIT game last season.’