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We’re right in the midst of some intense NCAA basketball conference play, and three Pac-12 teams have stood out as the best from the rest of the West Coast: the Arizona Wildcats, UCLA Bruins and Oregon Ducks. Arizona and Oregon, in particular, are particularly on the rise.
The No. 8 Bruins, though, have already lost to both the Wildcats and the Ducks, putting their Pac-12 title hopes in jeopardy early on.
Nevertheless, the oddsmakers still have faith in this decorated UCLA program to come out on top at the Big Dance. The NCAA betting line at TopBet sportsbook favors the Bruins by way of a Pac-12 best +900 odds of winning the national championship this year, mainly because of the sheer amount of firepower they have at their disposal. They’re second in Division I with 93 points scored per game, and they’re even tops in the nation when it comes to assists, field-goal percentage and three-point shooting percentage. Only Kentucky (+500) and Kansas (+750) were given better odds than UCLA by the folks over in Vegas.
Then again, No. 7 Arizona is definitely on the prowl as well and with a solid price of +1,600. The Wildcats have won 12-straight games to date, with their 11-point victory over UCLA being their latest feat. What’s stunning about this team is that it had to roll out freshmen like Lonzo Ball, Lauri Markkanen, T.J. Leaf and Markelle Fultz to carry the load for most of the season thus far, and they’ve collectively done so with flying colors. Now that star guard Alonso Trier is back in the fray, these young cats are about to get even better.
And let’s not forget about No. 10 Oregon, who’s on an even better 16-game tear and is right behind Arizona with +1,800 odds to win the school’s first basketball national title since 1939. Over their last five games, the Ducks have won by a whopping average of 24.6 points, and they didn’t even need All-American forward Dillon Brooks (sprained foot) in their latest outing to cruise to a 17-point victory over Stanford. The team won’t face off against the Wildcats or the Bruins until early February, which should hopefully give Brooks enough time to heal and keep the Ducks soaring high in the AP’s top-25 rankings.