The transfer portal has played a massive role in college basketball over the past few years. For the most part, teams no longer rely on developing younger players. Instead, players jump from team to team, making the college basketball landscape look drastically different from year to year. That's the case once again this season with a number of schools. However, Marquette is one team in the Big East that is returning much of its top talent, which is why I think the Golden Eagles are worth a look to win the national championship.
In digging further into Marquette's title odds, I noticed it's priced drastically different depending on where you look. For instance, DraftKings has the Golden Eagles sitting at 18-1 and BetMGM has them at 20-1. Move over to FanDuel and they're sitting at 25-1. But it gets better. Caesars has Marquette sitting at 30-1 to win the title. The value that DraftKings is putting on Shaka Smart's team is significantly lower than where Caesars has them. So, numbers alone, grabbing them at nearly double the price with Caesars is a great bet to make.
Of course, it's always nice to have some tangible evidence to go off of when placing a future, which is why you should scroll down to read why I think this team actually has a shot at winning it all.
The transfer portal has played a massive role in college basketball over the past few years. For the most part, teams no longer rely on developing younger players. Instead, players jump from team to team, making the college basketball landscape look drastically different from year to year. That's the case once again this season with a number of schools. However, Marquette is one team in the Big East that is returning much of its top talent, which is why I think the Golden Eagles are worth a look to win the national championship.
In digging further into Marquette's title odds, I noticed it's priced drastically different depending on where you look. For instance, DraftKings has the Golden Eagles sitting at 18-1 and BetMGM has them at 20-1. Move over to FanDuel and they're sitting at 25-1. But it gets better. Caesars has Marquette sitting at 30-1 to win the title. The value that DraftKings is putting on Shaka Smart's team is significantly lower than where Caesars has them. So, numbers alone, grabbing them at nearly double the price with Caesars is a great bet to make.
Of course, it's always nice to have some tangible evidence to go off of when placing a future, which is why you should scroll down to read why I think this team actually has a shot at winning it all.
The Golden Eagles finished the regular season with a 28-6 record, earning the Big East regular-season title and the conference tournament title. They earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the second round where they lost to Michigan State.
There is a very good chance Marquette will repeat as conference champions and make a deeper tournament run considering it's bringing back nearly 85% of its production from a year ago. The most important player returning is guard Tyler Kolek. He is the Eagles' floor general, leading the team in assists (7.5) and steals (1.8) while ranking second in scoring (12.9) and 3-point percentage (39.8%). Kolek is arguably one of the best backcourt players in the country, but playing alongside leading scorer Kam Jones gives Marquette one of the nation's top backcourt duos.
Shaka Smart also has experience leading veteran groups deep into the tournament. It didn't quite work out that way for Marquette last season, but he took VCU to the Final Four despite being a play-in team back in 2011. Smart was named national coach of the year last season and has the roster and talent to compete with the best teams in the country.
I have really high expectations for the Golden Eagles this season, so grabbing them at 30-1 at Caesars is great value!
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