Sweet 16 picks and best bets for 2023 NCAA Tournament

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The second week of the NCAA Tournament is upon us, and as the Sweet 16 is set to get underway there’s undoubtedly already been plenty of Madness this March.

Brackets aren’t merely busted, they are broken beyond repair. Two No. 1 seeds have been set packing. There are almost as many 15 seeds left (one) as there are top seeds (two).

Several of the so-called blue bloods of college basketball - Duke, Kentucky and Kansas - are out.

Plenty of good teams still remain, as do underdogs in search of yet another upset. As we enter Week No. 2 of March Madness, these are the top picks and the best bets to keep on playing.

The Alabama Crimson Tide came into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed and the Tide have lived up to that billing. So far, Alabama has won two games by a average margin of 19.5 points. Oddsmakers are setting the Crimson Tide as +360 favorites to win the entire tournament.

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Alabama is the nation’s No. 5 scoring offense, averaging 82.3 points per game. San Diego State figures to be a step up in class from Alabama’s first two opponents Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Maryland. However, the Aztecs won’t prove capable of rolling the Tide.

Pick: Alabama -7.5 (-110).

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo is always a trendy, sexy pick come tournament time. No matter their seeding, he always seems to have his Spartans playing their best basketball in March. Izzo has won a record 16 NCAA Tournament games as the lower-seeded team. In fact, oddsmakers are setting the No. 7 Spartans as the 1.5-point chalk over the No. 3 Kansas State Wildcats.

That’s just inviting an upset play here. Has there been a tougher, deeper conference this season than the Big 12? Michigan State is shooting just 23.3% from beyond the arc in the tournament. Resilient Kansas State rallied from an eight-point second-half deficit to beat Kentucky in the second round.

Pick: Kansas State Wildcats +1.5 (-110).

The Princeton Tigers, a 15 seed, are two wins away from becoming the first Ivy League school in the Final Four since the 1979 Pennsylvania Quakers. That accomplish gets overshadowed by the 1979 final, the first episode in the epic Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson saga.

It’s probably asking too much for Princeton to get past an almost certain Elite Eight matchup with Alabama, but reaching the next round by beating the No. 6 Creighton Bluejays seems entirely doable for the Tigers.

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Perhaps what’s most amazing about Princeton’s Cinderella run is that Princeton has yet to bring its best game to the floor. The Tigers are shooting just 40.6% from the field and a dismal 4-for-23 from long range. In other words, this is a team that’s still capable of more.

As well, since Jan. 7, Princeton is 6-1 straight up as a betting underdog. So there’s that.

Pick: Princeton Tigers +360.

Two years ago, Gonzaga toppled UCLA in the Final Four on a buzzer beater by Jalen Suggs. These two editions of their elite basketball programs aren’t on the level of those teams, but they can both score the basketball.

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Gonzaga is the NCAA’s top-scoring offense, netting 87.3 points per game. UCLA is scoring 73.9 points per game. The Bruins are 1.5-point favorites, so this one also figures to go down to the wire. More importantly, Gonzaga and UCLA should exceed the total set for this game of 145.5 points.

Pick: Over 145.5 points (-110).

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