March Madness Round 1 props: Bet Penn State’s Funk to score in bunches

If you’re unfamiliar with most of the players participating in March Madness, that’s OK — we’ve done the research on some enticing props for Thursday’s tournament action.

The pregame narrative: Isaac McBride isn’t the main outside shooter for Oral Roberts, but he’s active enough to drain a couple of threes. Later on, we’re fading Boo Buie in a tough matchup against Boise State and tailing Andrew Funk to break out of his, well, funk against Texas A&M.

Here are our top March Madness Round 1 props for NCAA tournament games on March 16.

NCAA basketball odds as of 10:45 p.m. ET on 03/16/2023.

March Madness Round 1 props

Best Bet : McBride over 1.5 threes (-109)

Oral Roberts fires from beyond the arc more than almost any team in the country, as 3-pointers account for 45.8% of their field goal attempts (16th in the NCAA).

Max Abmas is the obvious headliner of that group, firing more than nine 3-pointers per game, but he’s got -157 odds to can three or more — so we’re looking elsewhere for value.

NCAA bracket: Play the bracket here

McBride is our guy, with 1.8 makes on 4.4 attempts this season. Those are both career-high rates for the junior guard, who’s shooting 41.1% from deep.

If the Golden Eagles find themselves chasing Duke, that should bode well for their willingness to fire away from 3-point range. But it’s nice to know that’s also ORU’s typical game plan regardless of the script.

McBride has cleared this line in five of his past seven games, and we think he’ll have enough volume to do it again today.

Key stat: On the season, McBride has cleared this line in 20 of 34 games (58.8%).

Quick picks

Buie under 18.5 points (-121) : In a matchup between two strong defensive teams, we don’t expect Buie to exceed his season scoring average (17.1 points/game).

Northwestern and Boise State both rank in the top 20 in defensive efficiency, per KenPom, and they both rank outside the top 250 in offensive tempo. A slow, well-defended game should keep Buie (and others) in check.

Buie has fallen below this line in three of his past four games, as well as 18 of 32 (56.3%) this season.

Funk over 10.5 points (-114) : Texas A&M allows a lot of 3-point attempts, so we’re betting on Penn State’s highest-volume 3-point shooter to have a day.

Funk went cold in the Big Ten tournament final, going 0-for-5 from deep in an eight-point effort. But he averages more than seven 3-point attempts per game, which helps our chances.

The super-senior has a 12.1-point scoring average and has cleared this line in 21 of 35 games (60.0%).

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JH

Jordan Horrobin writes about sports betting for NorthStar Bets. NorthStar Bets is owned by NordStar Capital, which also owns Torstar, the Star’s parent company. Follow him on Twitter: @JordanHorrobinSHARE:

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