Posted at 12:30 PM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle +4½ -106  BET365 +4½ -110 Sportsinteraction +4½ -110 888Sport +4½ -110

T-Mobile Center, Kansas City, MO - Midwest Region - Sweet 16

Streaming: CBS

Xavier +4½ over Texas

9:45 PM EST. The media and the market love a redemption story, and they especially like it when that redemption story comes at a time when all eyes will be on their product. In this case, that product is the NCAA Tournament, and that team is a college sports blue blood, the Texas Longhorns. We’re not going to get into the whole Chris Beard story, as it’s been beaten like a dead horse at the Double Cross Ranch, but we will acknowledge that the ‘Horns are on a hell of a run. Texas has won six games in a row, hitting paydirt in all but one, where they pushed.

Along the way, the Longhorns won the Big 12 title, waffled Colgate by 20 in the Round of 64, and then sent a red-hot Penn State team packing in the Round of 32, pushing on the closing number of -5, 71-66. The Longhorns have now taken that torch as the hottest team in the nation from the Nittany Lions, which has greatly inflated their stock.

This is a very generous pile of points for the oddsmakers to be offering up on the Musketeers, but we get it. Xavier has not been kind to its backers, having cashed just one ticket in its last six games. Moreover, the Musketeers got a really good scare from Kennesaw State in Round 1, edging out the Owls 72-67 as a 12-point favorite. In fact, they were stuck 11 points to the Owls late in the first half. Prior to that, Xavier was whacked by double digits by Marquette in the Big East championship game. Confidently, we can use those past transgressions to our advantage tonight. These are inflated points on the 15th ranked team in the country that is taking some heat while the Longhorns are media and market darlings.

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