Douglas Farmer is playing the long game with his March Madness survivor picks for the Elite Eight, taking Michigan now in the hopes they will lose in the Final Four.
Douglas Farmer is playing the long game with his March Madness survivor picks for the Elite Eight, taking Michigan now in the hopes they will lose in the Final Four. Your March Madness survivor pool has too many entries still alive, doesn’t it? Obviously, anything more than your entries is too many entries alive, but this chalk-heavy NCAA Tournament has survivors abound.
I am in three different survivor leagues. The most enticing of them still has 12.2% of entries alive. The other two are just north of 13%. It is time to not only hope for chaos to thin the herd, but it is also time to bet on chaos. One of your In the Elite Eight, your survivor pool should not require you to pick one team per day; it should require you to pick two teams to win in the round. That prevents certain title matchups being ruled out simply because of the pairing of Elite Eight games to days. What you really need to think about is picking one team on the left side of the bracket and one team on the right side of the bracket. And as you pick them, you need to think about who you actually expect to advance to the national championship game. If anything became clear Friday night, it's that Duke will be playing on the first Monday in April. Sure, you could take the Blue Devils this weekend to best assure yourself survival into April, but survivor pools have grown too much in recent years to hope simply surviving in March will be enough to win some money. You must now predict April correctly, as well. Duke’s newfound and improving health should shatter any thoughts of the Blue Devils not reaching the national championship game. Tough luck, UConn, Illinois, and Iowa. If granting the premise that Duke will win in the Final Four, then you simply must decide who the Blue Devils will beat.are favored by seven on Saturday evening, and with the Illini defense improving of late, Iowa’s hopes of grinding this game into the 50s could backfire and keep the Hawkeyes from even reaching 50 points. The Illini have improved since they won at Iowa in January, while the Hawkeyes have actually slipped a bit in efficiency ratings. The chalk play both this weekend and next is to take Illinois to push your survivor entry halfway to the Final Four.The faith in Duke making the national championship game means your contrarian choice needs to come on the right side of the bracket. It is up to you if you make that bold move official now or next weekend. Yours truly will be staking his largest survivor bid on going bold now by taking the No. 1 team in the country pernow means I will need Purdue to reach the national championship game. This is my chosen risk through wanted chaos. Why would I ever stake these hopes on the Boilermakers upsetting the Wildcats? Because this is the exact matchup Arizona should fear, as laid out in this preview of Saturday’s games.Then why take Michigan now rather than Purdue? Because the Wolverines are quite vulnerable when they are not hitting their 3-pointers, and pinning national title hopes on such a liability is a risk Dusty May should come to regret. Taking Michigan now means I will then be able to trust the Boilermakers to upset the Wolverines next weekend for the second time this postseason. Look at that loss in the Big Ten Tournament. Michigan shot 7-for-24 from deep while taking 37.5% of its shots from beyond the arc. That latter rate was below both Purdue’s usual defensive standard and Michigan’s usual offensive choices. Yet, that bad shooting was still problematic enough to cost the Wolverines. They went 1-5 against the spread vs. NCAA Tournament teams this season when shooting worse than 30% from deep. That is not that much of a deviation from Michigan’s season-long average of 36.9% from deep. Yet that slight downtick costs the Wolverines. They should be able to survive as three-bucket favorites against Tennessee — though if really wanting to go contrarian, there is your recipe for chaos the likes of which usually only a Wildcat can serve to a Michigan Man — but this core deficiency should show itself eventually, hence taking Michigan to win one more and only one more game in this NCAA Tournament.: Our team of experts has thoroughly researched and handpicked each product that appears on our website. We may receive compensation if you sign up through our links. Douglas Farmer spends his days thinking about college football and his nights thinking about the NBA. His betting habits and coverage follow that same pattern. He covered Notre Dame football for various outlets from 2008 to 2024, most notably spending eight seasons as NBC Sports’ beat writer on the Irish. That was also when his gambling focus took off. Knowing there were veteran beat writers with three decades more experience than he had, Douglas found his niche by best recognizing Notre Dame’s standing in each year’s national landscape, a complex tapestry most easily understood and remembered via betting odds. In 2021, that interest created a freelance opportunity with Covers, a role that eventually led to Douglas joining the company full-time in 2023. In the fall, Douglas will place five or six dozen bets each week, a disproportionate amount via BetRivers because the operator tends to have lines slightly different than the rest of the market. The same can be said of Circa Sports’ futures markets. While Douglas is an avid NBA fan and covers the league throughout the year, the vast majority of his bets are on college football, because that is the biggest key to sports betting: Know what you do not know.Purdue vs Arizona Prediction, Picks & Odds for Today's March Madness GameJazz vs Suns Prediction, Picks & Odds for Tonight’s NBA GameBulls vs Grizzlies Prediction, Picks & Odds for Tonight’s NBA GameJets vs Avalanche Prediction, Picks & Odds for Tonight’s NHL GameMarch Madness Picks Against the Spread for Sunday, March 29Copyright © 1995 - 2026 CS Media Limited All Rights Reserved. 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