NCAA Tournament First Round Bets + Final Four Picks

The Early Edge: A Daily Sports Betting Podcast

CBS Sports, Sports Betting, Sports Gambling, Picks

Sports, Football

4.5 • 778 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Get those NCAA Tournament First Round bets in ASAP with our college basketball experts Sia Nejad, Mike McClure, Tom Casale, Larry Hartstein, and Chip Patterson and they dish out their FAVORITE round one bets and picks! Plus, help us fill out our bracket LIVE!

(0:00) Intro

(3:22) Early First Round Favorite Bets

(11:53) East Region Bets

(29:05) South Region Bets

(47:20) West Region Bets

(1:05:15) Midwest Region Bets

(1:25:45) NCAA Tournament Futures

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Get your daily bets here FIRST! The No. 1 sports betting show and podcast—powered by SportsLine & CBS Sports—delivers the day's best bets in a fast-paced, fun environment, first thing in the morning.

Starting at 10 a.m. ET every weekday, The Early Edge goes live on YouTube, breaking down the day’s action across the NFL, college football, NBA, MLB, NHL, college basketball, soccer, and more! The Early Edge is here to talk sports betting for everyone—from first-time bettors to sharps, and everyone in between. From point spreads to totals, player props to parlays, and so much more, we're here to win. Together.

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#BestBets #SportsBetting #MarchMadness #NCAATournament #MarchMadnessBets #NCAATournamentPicks #CollegeBasketball #CollegeBasketballPicks

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Early Edge. We are brought to by BetMGM, Make It
0:14.2	Legendary. A bit of a later edge as we've got Selection Sunday already come and gone. And therefore,
0:20.7	we've got Larry, Mike, Bob, and Tom to react to it. We've got selection Sunday already come and gone and therefore we've got larry mike bob and tom
0:23.4	to react to it we've got bets we already want to make we already want to tell you about we want to
0:27.5	see your bets in the chat and oh by the way we're going to go through a bracket with all of these guys
0:32.1	and some of you in the chat maybe get to a final four and we're going to pick a champion. Larry Hartstein,
0:38.5	this is a fun day, a lot going on, by the way, but we're focused in on March Madness.
0:43.6	Oh, it's a great day. And I don't know if you're in the ACC, if it's such a great day with the
0:48.5	path that Duke gets, with NC State getting sent to the first four, with Miami having, you know, to play Missouri in St. Louis.
0:57.0	So you have some complaints there. But overall, I think it's a, I think it's a really good bracket.
1:01.7	I don't think we've had the level of controversy that we've had in years past.
1:06.1	Yeah, perhaps not. Mike, I want to go to you here because we're going to have some plays that we're going to give out, you know, like just plays like right when the lines came out, these lines already on the move. So we're going to give them out pretty quick. With that said, Mike, I know you have lines and totals for every single game. So if people in the chat have a question, all four of these guys can answer those questions. But we also have, you know, some model plays and some of Mike's plays.
1:28.7	But, you know, Tom, Bob and Larry, all on this.
1:31.2	So make sure you ask your questions.
1:33.5	Mike, go ahead.
1:34.3	Yeah, I'll fire one off now because it's moved on one book, not on others.
1:39.0	That NC State, Texas game, under 161.5.
1:43.1	I make that number 158. The market is responding right now.
1:48.0	One book, Fandals, down to 159 and a half. The others are all currently 161.5 still.
1:54.4	People asking for a first half under. First half unders won't be out yet, unfortunately.
2:00.3	I would have played first half under in Texas, NC State be out yet unfortunately i would have played first half
2:01.6	under in texas nc state but full game under 161 and a half i would expect it to be 159 and a half
	...

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