2025 NCAA tournament picks: Predictions, odds, lines, schedule for every March Madness 1st-round game

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March Madness is upon us. Upsets, dominance, game-winners and folk heroes are the names of the game during tourney time. It’s time to fill out your brackets and ride the wave to the national title game April 7.

Here are picks for every first-round NCAA tournament game, except those involving the First Four teams. We’ll update those when the games are played and the matchups are decided.

All times Eastern

South region

No. 8 Louisville (-2.5) over No. 9 Creighton, 12:15 p.m. Thursday

The first game of the first round Thursday is a good one. Louisville seems very under-seeded, but that’s part of playing in a bad ACC. Still, since Dec. 14 the Cardinals are 21-2 and one of the losses came to Duke in the ACC tournament. Creighton has been a very good team too, and 7-foot-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner will be a problem for the Cardinals. But I won’t hold it against Louisville that the ACC was down. The Cards advance.

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No. 13 Yale (+7.5) over No. 4 Texas A&M, 7:25 p.m. Thursday

Yale has become the Ivy’s best program, and this season it dominated the league. Yale was 16-1 after Dec. 22. Texas A&M is a good team, but it lives off offensive rebounding (the best offensive rebounding percentage in the nation), and yet Yale is pretty good on the defensive boards. The Ivy League has been pretty good in the first round of the NCAA tournament, going 9-6 against the spread over the past 15 tournaments (per Matt Eisenberg’s Tournament Binder). Texas A&M could make a run into the second weekend, but this one isn’t going to be easy.

Big Ten champion Michigan is facing a tough matchup against UC San Diego. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

No. 5 Michigan (-2.5) over No. 12 UC San Diego, 10 p.m. Thursday

Ah, the 5 vs. 12 game. We all know by now this is where upsets come from, and UC San Diego is a dangerous 12 seed. KenPom.com had San Diego as the 36th best team in the sport, which is…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball/article/2025-ncaa-tournament-picks-predictions-odds-lines-schedule-for-every-march-madness-1st-round-game-183125736.html

Author : Frank Schwab,Yahoo Sports Staff

Publish date : 2025-03-17 18:31:00

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