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Speaker 1: This is the Action Network podcast. It's on target. It

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Speaker 1: is good way. That's when you have fun when you're

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Speaker 1: kicking somebody's ass and they're sucking for when that was good? Ready,

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Speaker 1: go in bolder on the baseline pot yeah, way outside

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Speaker 1: the LEYVT. There it is we whoa, whoa. Welcome everyone

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Speaker 1: to the Action Network podcast. This is Action networks fourth

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Speaker 1: annual Gifting Guide to March Madness. What this is is

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Speaker 1: this is a way to bet March Madness that combines

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Speaker 1: some Cinderella stories, some fun upside while risking just a

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Speaker 1: little bit, you know, to minimize any potential losses. Should

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Speaker 1: we have eight down year, But I think we're going

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Speaker 1: to have a great year. Last year's Gifting Guide to

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Speaker 1: March madus in twenty twenty four, we nailed NC State. Yes,

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Speaker 1: my wolfpack, I went to grad school at NC State.

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Speaker 1: We got them all the way to the Elite eight

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Speaker 1: and they continued on to the final four in this

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Speaker 1: gift and Guide to March Madness, providing us with a

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Speaker 1: hugely successful year for year three here at Action Network.

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Speaker 1: So to break it down, what we do here is

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Speaker 1: we typically like to risk two units and we spread

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Speaker 1: it across eight picks. So two units divided by eight,

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Speaker 1: that's a quarter unit across each pick. That minimizes, you know,

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Speaker 1: the amount that we're going to lose. But if we

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Speaker 1: nail one of these eight picks and get them to

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Speaker 1: advance at least three rounds, that should at worst break

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Speaker 1: us back even. But typically, especially in the case of

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Speaker 1: hitting a team like NC State, give us a pretty

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Speaker 1: significant profit on our investment. We're always going to look

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Speaker 1: at it five seeds or longer, you know, typically in

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Speaker 1: that five to twelve range. Occasionally we'll get a thirteen

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Speaker 1: or a fourteen seed, although spoiler alert, none this year

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Speaker 1: that long, and again we're just trying to find them

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Speaker 1: to get three rounds of advancement. The reason we do

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Speaker 1: this is it is better to bet these teams on

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Speaker 1: the money line. Then if they win, you take your

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Speaker 1: original bet plus the amount you won on the money line,

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Speaker 1: and you bet them on the money line in the

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Speaker 1: next game. This money line rollover for strategy is actually

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Speaker 1: more profitable almost always, like ninety eight plus percent of

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Speaker 1: the time than just betting a future on this team.

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Speaker 1: If you know, sportsbooks offer a future to get to

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Speaker 1: the Elite eight. This money line rollover strategy is typically

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Speaker 1: more profitable because books hold more on the Elite eight

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Speaker 1: futures than they do on a single money line bet.

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Speaker 1: Even when you compound three money line bets, the whole

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Speaker 1: is less than on an Elite eight future. So that's

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Speaker 1: the strategy here, and I don't want to delay this

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Speaker 1: any further. I do want to get to the picks.

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Speaker 1: But before that, of course, March Madness is here. And

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Speaker 1: now's a great time to become an Action Pro subscriber

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Speaker 1: because this season, our predictive analytics kingpin Sean Kerner will

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Speaker 1: again release his full bracket simulations, but it's only for

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Speaker 1: pro subscribers. So if you want Shawn's bracket simulations, access

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Speaker 1: to our tournament systems and player prop projections across every

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Speaker 1: single March Madness game, go to Actionnetwork dot com slash

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Speaker 1: March to sign up and take advantage of a very

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Speaker 1: special price, just sixty eight dollars for a full year

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Speaker 1: of Action Pro access. That's Actionnetwork dot Com slash March

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Speaker 1: for a full year of Action Pro including all of

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Speaker 1: our March Madness benefits, plus NFL Football, Baseball and everything else,

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Speaker 1: all for just sixty eight dollars. All right, so let's

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Speaker 1: get into the picks, and again before I do, I

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Speaker 1: just want to preview something because twenty twenty five is

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Speaker 1: probably going to be the hardest year yet for the

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Speaker 1: Gift and Guide to March Madness. And the reason is

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Speaker 1: the number one seeds. The four number one seeds of Duke, Houston, Florida,

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Speaker 1: and Auburn are four of these six most highest rated

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Speaker 1: one seeds in at least a decade, which is absolutely

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Speaker 1: crazy because they're all four in this year out of

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Speaker 1: multiple years of four to one seeds. So these four

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Speaker 1: one seeds being so incredibly strong is going to push

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Speaker 1: us in a little bit of a convoluted direction. With

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Speaker 1: these picks, I'll explain everything, of course, and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to start in the Midwest region. Now, look, if we

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Speaker 1: have four regions, right, we have a top and a

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Speaker 1: bottom half of each region where there's the one seed

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Speaker 1: side and the two seed side. Well, in the Midwest region,

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Speaker 1: this is the only reason, the only region I should

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Speaker 1: say where I'm going to be targeting the one seed side.

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Speaker 1: And since I'm not going to be targeting the one

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Speaker 1: seeds in the other regions, We're gonna have to double

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Speaker 1: up in certain octants, certain halves of a region. So

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Speaker 1: let's start in the Midwest again, and we're gonna go

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Speaker 1: right to the first four game. It is a bit

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Speaker 1: of a choose your own adventure. I'm gonna call this

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Speaker 1: pick number one, choose your own adventure between the first

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Speaker 1: four game of Xavier and Texas. You know, these two

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Speaker 1: teams are playing as the eleven seeds for the right

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Speaker 1: to advance and face Illinois. And what we're doing here

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Speaker 1: by taking these eleven seeds, we're gonna be targeting the

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Speaker 1: six seed Illinois and the three seed Kentucky, who are

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Speaker 1: two highly variable teams, very inconsistent teams and power ratings

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Speaker 1: which I lean on very heavily for this gift and

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Speaker 1: guide in March Madness has Illinois graded pretty fairly as

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Speaker 1: a borderline five to six seed, but Kentucky also actually

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Speaker 1: the three seed grades out as a borderline five or

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Speaker 1: six seeds. So we're targeting one of the weaker three

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Speaker 1: seeds here in this region by going with either Xavier

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Speaker 1: or Texas. So there's a couple options here. This is

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Speaker 1: why I say choose your own adventure. I'll give you

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Speaker 1: my preferred path, but I don't necessarily love my path.

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Speaker 1: It is very difficult so I want you to take

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Speaker 1: your option with Xavier or Texas, and the two options

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Speaker 1: are you can play them from the first four game

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Speaker 1: on Wednesday night and moneyline role either Xavier or Texas

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Speaker 1: your preference over to the Sweet sixteen. So if they

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Speaker 1: make it to the Sweet sixteen, right, they won their

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Speaker 1: first four game, their Round one game, and their Round

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Speaker 1: two game, that's the three round advancement that we need.

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Speaker 1: The other option you could wait see which of Xavier

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Speaker 1: or Techs emerges and you can do the money line

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Speaker 1: rollover starting from round one. But then we need to

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Speaker 1: get them to the Elite eight. And in this case,

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Speaker 1: we're targeting the two seed Tennessee as the next round.

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Speaker 1: And we like targeting slow paced teams because the fewer

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Speaker 1: possessions negates minimizes the efficiency advantage the amount of times

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Speaker 1: they have a per possession efficiency advantage. In Tennessee is

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Speaker 1: one of the bottom twenty paced teams in the nation here,

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Speaker 1: so that is your other option. If you want to

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Speaker 1: wait and see which of Xavier or Texas emerges, you

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Speaker 1: can moneyline roll them over from the first official first

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Speaker 1: round to the Elite eight. Me personally, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: go from the first four to the sweet sixteen. And

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Speaker 1: the only reason I'm choosing Texas I think Xavier is

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Speaker 1: the better team. But the only reason I'm choosing Texas

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Speaker 1: here is because at the time that you know we're

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Speaker 1: recording this, we're releasing this. Plus one forty on the

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Speaker 1: money line is just a bit too long. I have

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Speaker 1: this closer to about plus one twenty five as fair value.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to roll Texas over on the money

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Speaker 1: line from the first four all the way to the

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Speaker 1: sweet sixteen as my first pick. For my second pick

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Speaker 1: in this region, we are doubling up on that Tennessee

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Speaker 1: side of the bracket, and I'm going to take the

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Speaker 1: seven seed UCLA Bruins as my next pick in the

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Speaker 1: first round. I actually don't like Ucla here, but this

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Speaker 1: isn't a one game play. This is a three game play,

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Speaker 1: and Ucla is set up better than Utah State, the

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Speaker 1: ten seed there to beat Tennessee. And the reason is

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Speaker 1: UCLA is also slow pace. So we get a slow

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Speaker 1: paced Ucla who's bottom sixty five in pace against a

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Speaker 1: plotting Tennessee team that's bottom twenty in pace, really limiting

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Speaker 1: the number of possessions that Tennessee gets to realize their

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Speaker 1: efficiency advantage. That creates added variants that we like, added

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Speaker 1: variants when we're taking underdogs from there. Again, we target

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Speaker 1: Kentucky and Illinois, who both great as orderline five or

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Speaker 1: six seeds, and UCLA was actually ranked in the preseason

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Speaker 1: higher than both Kentucky and Illinois. That might sound silly,

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Speaker 1: why are you looking at preseason rankings? Well, preseason rankings

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Speaker 1: have predictive power. This has been shown year in and

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Speaker 1: year out multiple times for the NCAA Tournament that preseason

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Speaker 1: rankings do matter. And when I factor that in, it

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Speaker 1: gives us a little bit of a sneaky edge on

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Speaker 1: taking UCLA over Kentucky or Illinois. There, so UCLA on

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Speaker 1: the money line from the first round to the Elite

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Speaker 1: eight as my second pick here in the Midwest region.

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Speaker 1: My third pick is also in the Midwest region, but

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Speaker 1: this time we're going to the top half of the region.

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Speaker 1: The only time we're targeting a one seed here, and

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Speaker 1: we are targeting Houston as the one seed. And this

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Speaker 1: is a bit of a special strategy as well. I

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Speaker 1: told you this is going to be a convoluted gifting

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Speaker 1: guide because of the scary nature of these one seeds.

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Speaker 1: So what we're doing here for pick number three is

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Speaker 1: we're taking the quarter unit and we're splitting that on

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Speaker 1: two teams, two one to eighth unit bets, and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to bet on Perdue the number four seed, and

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Speaker 1: Clemson the number five seed, to cover the spread in

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Speaker 1: their first round game a quarter unit total, so an

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Speaker 1: eighth of a unit on each. What that does is

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Speaker 1: this leaves us three options. Either both fail to cover

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Speaker 1: the spread. In that case, we're out our quarter unit

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Speaker 1: and this pick is a loss. If both cover the

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Speaker 1: spread in their first round game, we cash that out

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Speaker 1: and we make a little bit less than, you know,

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Speaker 1: a half a unit, right, the minus one to ten

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Speaker 1: vig would put this at aboutzero point four to five

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Speaker 1: to five units profit. The third option is one of

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Speaker 1: these teams covers and one of these teams does not cover.

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Speaker 1: In that case, the most likely scenario is they still

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Speaker 1: would play each other, just you know that one team

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Speaker 1: didn't cover the spread as like a four to ten

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Speaker 1: or fifteen point favorite in that neighborhood and the other didn't,

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Speaker 1: so they'd be playing each other. What we're gonna do is,

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Speaker 1: since we essentially break even, we lose, you know, point

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Speaker 1: zero two units or something like that. We're just going

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Speaker 1: to redeploy a quarter unit on the team that covered

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Speaker 1: the spread to beat money line the other team. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: if Clemson covers a spread and Purdue doesn't, they face

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Speaker 1: each other, we're going to redeploy quarter unit on Clemson

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Speaker 1: money line versus Purdue, and vice versa. Perdue covers and

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Speaker 1: Clemson doesn't, redeploy quarter unit on Purdue versus Clemson money line. However,

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Speaker 1: if the covering team ends up facing you know, one

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Speaker 1: of these fourteen or type seeds, you know, the upset

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Speaker 1: here with McNee State or high Point, then we'll just

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Speaker 1: redeploy that quarter unit as a spread bet against either

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Speaker 1: mcney State or high Point and then continue the money

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Speaker 1: line rollover to the Elite eight, where you know, either

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Speaker 1: Purdue or Clemson is likely to face Houston, but also

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Speaker 1: potentially Againzaga, a very strong eight seed that would face

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Speaker 1: Houston in the second round should the zag get past Georgia.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, both Clemson or Purdue would be

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Speaker 1: an underdog to either Houston or Gonzaga, which would give

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Speaker 1: us that nice plus money and then hopefully we can

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Speaker 1: get that money line when there with produa Clemson. What

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Speaker 1: I really like here, Houston as the one seed, a

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Speaker 1: very slow paced team just like Tennessee, and both Purdue

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Speaker 1: and Clemson are also relatively slow paced team. So again

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Speaker 1: we're limiting the possessions here that Houston gets their efficiency advantage.

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Speaker 1: So those first three picks are for the Midwest region.

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Speaker 1: Now we're going to move on to the South region

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Speaker 1: for my first pick in the South Region, the fourth

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Speaker 1: pick for this gift and guide to March Madnis, we're

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Speaker 1: going back to the first four. So you're gonna want

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Speaker 1: to get on this right away because we're starting with

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Speaker 1: tonight's game between UNC and San Diego State, and I

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Speaker 1: am taking North Carolina the North Carolina tar Heels as

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Speaker 1: the eleven seed. Right away from the first four. You know,

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Speaker 1: this is a team North Carolina that is only one

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Speaker 1: in twelve in Quad one games. That sounds terrible, but

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Speaker 1: they are on a bit of a rebound. They are

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Speaker 1: seven and two in their last nine games straight up.

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Speaker 1: The only two losses they had were to the number

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Speaker 1: one overall seed Duke by an average of just eight

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Speaker 1: points over those two games. During that nine game span,

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Speaker 1: they've climbed from forty seventh to thirty third in the

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Speaker 1: Ken Palm rankings, and I actually think they're going to

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Speaker 1: climb a little bit further, maybe closer towards their preseason

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Speaker 1: Ken Palm ranking of fifteen, and their preseason Poll ranking

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Speaker 1: was actually inside the top ten. So again another little

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Speaker 1: bit of using our statistical prior on this team showing

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Speaker 1: an improvement here. This improvement is also coincided with their

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Speaker 1: lineup changes. They went from Seth Trimble to Drake Powell

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Speaker 1: in the starting lineup and they went from Ian Jackson

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Speaker 1: to Jalen Withers in the starting lineup. Both have been

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Speaker 1: improvements improvement just in terms of player efficiency and that

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Speaker 1: has translated to team efficient see here. So we can

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Speaker 1: play them money line tonight versus San Diego State at

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Speaker 1: anything minus one eighty five or better, maybe minus one

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Speaker 1: eighty if they if there is that out there. However,

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Speaker 1: if you can't get better than minus one eighty five,

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Speaker 1: play them on the spread versus San Diego State. I

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Speaker 1: was able to get them on the money line at

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Speaker 1: minus one eighty two, so that is my play here

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Speaker 1: and then from there, if they win, they'll be facing

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Speaker 1: old Miss Old Miss this game. They would be a

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Speaker 1: coin flip, so we're gonna money line them against Old

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Speaker 1: Miss and then most likely they're gonna face Iowa State

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Speaker 1: the three seed. However, Iowa State is very banged up,

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Speaker 1: Kashan Gilbert out for the year, Tam and Lipsei questionable

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Speaker 1: for the first couple of rounds. So this is a

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Speaker 1: good spot to target a three seed that is banged up,

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Speaker 1: and we just need to get to the sweet sixteen

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Speaker 1: because we're starting from the first four here, So that's

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Speaker 1: the three games you and c on the money line

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Speaker 1: or to cover the spread in the first round, and

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Speaker 1: then on the money line to the Sweet sixteen. Second

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Speaker 1: pick here in this South Region, fifth overall pick. I

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Speaker 1: am taking the seven seed Marquette the Golden Eagles, and

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Speaker 1: here I am targeting the two seed Michigan State. Michigan

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Speaker 1: State was unranked in the preseason. When teams are a

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Speaker 1: one seed or a two seed and they're unranked in

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Speaker 1: the preseason, they struggle in the NCAA tournament, failing to

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Speaker 1: make the Sweet sixteen quite frequently. So Marquette is the

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Speaker 1: team that is best set up here to do that

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Speaker 1: instead of the ten seed New Mexico Lobos. And that's

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Speaker 1: because New Mexico pushes pace, and that's not what we

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Speaker 1: want when we're an underdog. We don't want more possessions

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Speaker 1: to realize the efficiency disadvantage for the underdog. So I

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Speaker 1: prefer going with Marquette here, and this game versus New

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Speaker 1: Mexico close enough that we can just moneyline roll over Marquette,

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Speaker 1: money Line roll them over versus Michigan State, and then

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Speaker 1: money Line roll them over again to the Elite eight.

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Speaker 1: So we have five picks down, two regions down. We've

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Speaker 1: got two regions to go, and I'm gonna move on

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Speaker 1: to the West Region. Just one pick in this region,

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Speaker 1: again targeting the two side of the bracket, the two

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Speaker 1: seeded side, and I'm going to take the Kansas Jayhawks

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Speaker 1: as another seven seed here. Kansas number one in the

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Speaker 1: preseason ranking. So again a nice strong statistical prior here.

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Speaker 1: On the Kansas Jayhawks, who you know, they've struggled. They're

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Speaker 1: only seven and seven in their last fourteen games in

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Speaker 1: the win loss column. But this is still a very

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Speaker 1: strong team and they match up well on their first

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Speaker 1: round game against the ten seed Arkansas Razorbacks. Kansas not

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Speaker 1: a good free throw shooting team, but Arkansas doesn't foul

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Speaker 1: at a high rate, so that negates, you know, Kansas's

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Speaker 1: offensive weakness and plays towards Kansas's offensive strengths instead defensively.

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Speaker 1: On the flip side, also a good matchup here for

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Speaker 1: Kansas because Kansas is a great shot stopping team and

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Speaker 1: Kansas also does not foul, and that negates Arkansas's strengths,

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Speaker 1: which is shot making and free throw making. If you're

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Speaker 1: not putting them on the line, they're not making free

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Speaker 1: throws and you're a great shot stopping team, Well that's

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Speaker 1: gonna hurt a very good shooting team. Then they would

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Speaker 1: face Saint John's as the number two seed, but like

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Speaker 1: Michigan State, Saint John's was an unranked two seed in

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Speaker 1: the preseason, again failing that trend our own Evan Abrams

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Speaker 1: with Action Network actually posted this trend out in his article.

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Speaker 1: So we love targeting these pres preseason unranked one or

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Speaker 1: two seeds, So we love targeting Saint John's here. And

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Speaker 1: then again, will money Line roll over Kansas all three

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Speaker 1: games from the first round to the Elite eight. So

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Speaker 1: that's our only pick there in the West Region. We

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Speaker 1: have one final region and that is the East Region,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to go to the number eleven seed.

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Speaker 1: Here the VCU rams and a little bit near and

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Speaker 1: dear to my heart. Right, I had NC State last year.

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Speaker 1: That was the team I went with, and I went

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Speaker 1: to grad school there. My youngest brother went to VCU.

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Speaker 1: So this is not a home er pick, This is

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Speaker 1: made with my brain. But VCU very very good team,

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Speaker 1: criminally under seeded as an eleven seed. I have them

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Speaker 1: actually as more like an eight seed, and my power

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Speaker 1: ratings make VCU a one and a quarter point underdog

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Speaker 1: to BYU here. So we've got the three letters you

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Speaker 1: know abbreviation teams. And while this may not be the

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Speaker 1: most neutral spot with VCU heading to Denver to face BYU,

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Speaker 1: who's you know, just only a state over in Utah

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Speaker 1: as their home, this home court advantage, you know, doesn't

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Speaker 1: really apply for BYU because they rely on home court

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Speaker 1: so much that even moving over to Denver negates their

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Speaker 1: big home court advantage. And VCU is a team traditionally

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Speaker 1: that doesn't really need home court advantage. They've been pretty

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Speaker 1: good at neutral sites and on the road relative to

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Speaker 1: what they do at home as well. Well, So you know,

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Speaker 1: I have them as a one and a quarter point

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Speaker 1: underdog at a neutral if you want to give BYU

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a home court bump here just

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Speaker 1: because you know VCU is traveling to Denver a little

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Speaker 1: bit of altitude. Sure, but I cannot get to the

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Speaker 1: three and a half point spread where this thing stands.

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Speaker 1: VSU a fantastic defense, and I think they're poised to

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Speaker 1: make a great run through their portion of the brackets.

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Speaker 1: So we're money line rolling over VCU. The VCU rams

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Speaker 1: from the Elite first round to the Elite eight for

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Speaker 1: the last pick of the Giffin Guide to March Madness,

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Speaker 1: we are going to go to the other half of

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Speaker 1: that region. We'll be targeting the two seed again and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to take the Saint Mary's gals here. And

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Speaker 1: this is the team. Remember last year in the Gifting

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Speaker 1: Guide in March Madness, we targeted to lose. We had

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Speaker 1: Grand Canyon beating Saint Mary's, and Grand Canyon did beat

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Speaker 1: Saint Mary's. Now I'm flipping the script and I'm targeting

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Speaker 1: Saint Mary's because I really need find a team that

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Speaker 1: can beat Alabama, and I think Saint Mary's is poised

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Speaker 1: to do that. The gals play at a plotting pace

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Speaker 1: extremely slow, sixth slowest adjusted tempo nationally and that should

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Speaker 1: keep the up tempo. Crimson tied Alabama that two seed

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Speaker 1: there in check while doing defensively exactly what Alabama doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to see. Saint Mary's takes away the three point shot,

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Speaker 1: whereas Alabama relies specifically on the three point shot and

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Speaker 1: also getting to the rim, which is another strength of

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Speaker 1: Saint Mary's defense. So being able to take down Alabama

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Speaker 1: is a big key. So we're gonna play Saint Mary's

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Speaker 1: on the money line again from round one to the

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Speaker 1: Elite eight to complete the eight picks for the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five Gifting Guide to March Madness. So hopefully we'll

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Speaker 1: hit another one this year. It's going to be a

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Speaker 1: tough road, tough sledding, but I feel pretty good, honestly,

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Speaker 1: especially about that Ain't Mary's pick. At the end, before

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Speaker 1: we go, I just want to remind you all that

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Speaker 1: we do have our player prop podcasts coming on the

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Speaker 1: Action Network YouTube channel. At three thirty we're gonna have

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Speaker 1: Eric bamfour and Mike Calabres given out some props, and

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Speaker 1: then at five thirty pm Eastern time, my shut myself

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Speaker 1: with our director of predictive analytics Sean Kerner will be

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Speaker 1: giving our favorite player props as well for the first

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Speaker 1: round games, so that's going to do it for the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five Gifting Guide to March Madness. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: tuning in and good luck have a great March Madness.

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Speaker 1: Action Network reminds you please gamble responsibly. If you or

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Speaker 1: someone you care about has a gambling problem, help is

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Speaker 1: available twenty four to seven at one eight hundred gambler