Furman vs. San Diego State Bracket Prediction: March Madness Odds
The first game of the NCAA Tournament’s second round is early Saturday afternoon action from the South Region as No. 13 seed Furman takes on No. 5 San Diego State.
The Aztecs are 5.5-point favourites to win on the college basketball odds.
Furman vs. San Diego State NCAA Tournament Point Spread and Betting
The winner of this game faces either No. 1 Alabama (my choice) or No. 8 Maryland in the Sweet 16 next weekend. That San Diego State of the Mountain West is in the Round of 32 as expected, but Furman of the Southern Conference pulled off a massive Round 1 upset over Virginia.
Saturday will be the first meeting between the schools. To win reach the Elite Eight, Furman is +968 with -5000 for no. To win the South, it is +3606. The Paladins didn’t play a Mountain West team this season.
San Diego State is +245 to reach the Elite Eight and -357 for no. It is +631 to win the South. The Aztecs didn’t play a SoCon team this season.
Furman Paladins (13)
Playing in its first NCAA Tournament since 1980, Furman became the first SoCon school to claim a tournament win since 2019 with a shocking 68-67 victory over No. 4 Virginia, the co-ACC regular-season champion. Not a shock overall as Furman is a good team but how it unfolded was surprising:
UVA led by two with under 10 seconds left. The Wahoos inbounded the ball under their own basket and it eventually ended up in the hands of fifth-year senior Kihei Clark, a good player for years. Two Furman players went to trap Clark and for some reason, even though UVA still had a timeout and he probably would have simply been fouled, Clark heaved the ball up around half-court. It was intercepted by Furman’s Garrett Hien, who quickly passed to an open JP Pegues, and he hit the winning three-pointer. Truly stunning.
Furman has two terrific players in fifth-year seniors Jalen Slawson, the SoCon Player of the Year, and Mike Bothwell. They both delivered as Slawson paced the Paladins with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists despite some early foul trouble, and Bothwell had 11 points. He became the fifth player in school history to reach 2,000 career points, while Slawson surpassed 1,500 career points in the historic win. The Paladins are 10-1 ATS in their last 11 games vs. a team with a winning record.
San Diego St. Aztecs (5)
We projected San Diego State to beat No. 12 seed Charleston 74-67 in Round 1 and the Aztecs prevailed 63-57. Guard Matt Bradley, who was first-team All-Mountain West, was the only SDSU player with double-digit points as he had 17 – that’s really nothing new as Bradley was the only player during the season to average double-digit points. Teammate Micah Parrish was a saviour for bettors who backed the Aztecs at -5.5 as he made two free throws with less than a second left for the final points and the cover. Frankly, the refs didn’t need to call the meaningless foul on Charleston because the result wasn’t in doubt.
SDSU is always one of the nation’s top defensive teams and held the Cougars to 32.1 per cent shooting. San Diego State ended its four-game losing streak in the tournament. The Mountain West got four teams into this year’s Dance including the First Four, and SDSU was the only one to win. The MW struggling mightily in the Dance has been an issue for a few years. San Diego State is 4-1 ATS in its past five games.
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