Look for the TV sports networks to be wall-to-wall Belmont/Duke highlights, as if they want to keep their audience they have no other choice.  There simply wasn’t much competitive basketball on Thursday in the NCAA basketball tournament.   How non-competitive was it?
 
To start with, favorites were 13-3 to the pointspread, and that only scratches the surface of how uninteresting the games were.  13 of the 16 games were decided by double-digits, while 6 of the 16 games had halftime margins of 19 points or more.   Even the few games that looked interesting at halftime turned into routs, with Xavier outscoring Georgia 46-27 after halftime and Washington State blowing open a tie game with a 42-11 second half stampede over Winthrop.
 
The one thing that kept bettors interested were the totals.  Not only did overs and unders split to one closing line, going 8-8, but many were decided purely by happenstance. 6 of 16 games stayed under or went over by one point or less, with Arizona/West Virginia, Portland State/Kansas, Kent State/UNLV, Winthrop/Washington State, Temple/Michigan State, and Texas A&M/BYU all being glorious winners or gut-wrenching losers for totals players.  
 
The winners on Thursday were chalk players, as well as over/under bettors who shopped for lines and timed their wagers well.  Hopefully Friday’s card does a bit more to retain our interest.