Posted at 8:30 AM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle -7½ -107 BET365 -7½ -110 Sportsinteraction -7½ -110  888Sport -7½ -110 

Kansas -7½ over Samford

Men's Basketball Championship - Midwest Region - 1st Round

Delta Center, Salt Lake City, UT

Streaming: TBS

9:55 PM EST. The Jayhawks of Kansas limp into this NCAA Tournament with a huge target on their backs, as every pundit and pick seller this side of Lawrence has them dead to rights here in round one as an undermanned #4 seed. There are two pretty good reasons why the injury chasers are out in full force for this game, and that is because the Jayhawks will be without All-American Kevin McCullar Jr., who puts up 18.3 points per game but has been suffering from a bruised knee for almost two months. That knee pain finally boiled over in Kansas’s regular-season finale, where McCullar Jr. missed the second half of that game, and then he missed the Jayhawks getting whacked by Cincinnati in the Big 12 Tournament. There was some optimism that McCullar Jr. may play, but coach Bill Self ruled him out on Tuesday.

Not only is McCullar Jr. out, but one of the Jayhawks' other All-Americans, Hunter Dickenson, is banged up, which has the market salivating about the chance of an upset to a blue-blood college hoops program at the hands of a plucky, high-tempo mid-major in the Bulldogs of Samford. We’ll get to Samford in a moment because we cannot understate just how much of an overreaction there has been to Kansas’ injury woes and the fact that those injuries were already accounted for when these lines were first posted. We call those in the market that fade teams with injured players, “injury chasers” and that profile is one of the great sins of wagering. Furthermore, the Jayhawks' standing in the market has taken a big hit based on poor recent results, which include losing four of their last five games to end the season.

On the courts, injuries or not, this could be a tough matchup for a Samford run-and-gun offense that does not play great defense and is undersized up front. In the post, the Bulldogs are 257th in defending the rim, and they are just 343rd in the nation in defending post-up plays. Even with his banged-up shoulder, the 7-foot Dickenson figures to get his down low.

Samford lives and dies by the three-point shot, ranking 15th in the nation, hitting 9.9 buckets from downtown per game. That is a tremendously successful formula when the shots fall, but when they aren’t, it can get ugly. The Bulldogs sliced through the Southern Conference Tournament like a hot knife through butter, as they shot an eye-popping 39.9% from beyond the arc, but there are no guarantees that otherworldly shooting continues. The NCAA Tournament is not the SoCon.

This is the big stage, with the bright lights, and Samford has a rare seat at the grown-ups' table, as this is just the Bulldogs’ third March Madness appearance all time, and their first in 24 years. We’re not suggesting the Bulldogs are just happy to be here, but it has been a long time, and just getting to The Big Dance has made everyone on this team and head coach Bucky McMillan legends on campus. If the Bulldogs shoot the lights out today from downtown as they did in the SoCon Tournament, and Kansas goes down as a trendy fade because of their injury woes, fine. However, the Jayhawks come into this game with a huge chip on their shoulders and an “us versus them,” “nobody believes in us” mentality that a blue-blood program rarely does. The overreaction to the McCullar Jr. injury cannot be ignored, and it’s going to be “all hands on deck” for the Jayhawks tonight. Swallow the points.

Sherwood

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