This is going to be an interesting year in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Some of the usual suspects — Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky — are having their struggles this year, so we’re seeing the emergence of some new favorites, such as Virginia and Xavier. Michigan State is sticking around and should win the Big Ten regular season title, but they’ve shown some baffling flaws. This makes 2018 a challenging year for bettors…so take a look at our March Madness betting preview of the teams that (at least for now) have the best odds to win the whole tournament once March rolls around.

Which Teams Do Oddsmakers Choose as March Madness Betting Picks?

New AP Top 10 1. Virginia 2. Michigan State 3. Villanova 4. Xavier 5. Duke T6. Texas Tech T6. Gonzaga 8. Kansas 9. Purdue 10. North Carolina

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) February 19, 2018

Villanova 

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (9-2)

The Wildcats’ loss to Providence made Villanova fans scratch their heads, but you’d rather have your bad loss late in regular season play than in the conference tournament or in the Big Dance. They followed that up with a 16-point win at Xavier that showed an incredible degree of ball movement. Jalen Brunson, Eric Paschall and Donte DiVincenzo put up 23 combined assists but just one turnover. They had combined for 13 turnovers against Providence, but for the season they are seventh in the nation as far as lowest turnover rate goes, so I’m looking at the game against Providence as more of an outlier.

Michigan State 

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (5-1)

The Spartans found themselves down at Northwestern by a 43-16 score before mounting a furious second-half rally that showed their ironclad defense (finally). According to KenPom, they are the only team in the nation in the top ten in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency. So they do have a number of flaws — but they also do a lot of things well, which definitely comes in handy in the tournament, when some parts of a team’s game can go dark for extended periods of time. Their final regular season test comes at Wisconsin.

Virginia 

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (6-1)

Virginia’s schedule includes an unusual entire week without a game — which might turn into an ingenious idea, giving the Cavaliers some needed rest going into tournament time. They have four more games in ACC play before the conference tournament, beginning with Georgia Tech at home and Pitt on the road, but their major tests are done. This is another team with a lockdown defense — but unlike in prior years, the Cavaliers can score in bunches.

Duke 

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (7-1)

Moving to a zone defense has improved the Blue Devils’ focus on their own end ot he score, as they held Virginia Tech to just 52 points and have moved up to #42 in the nation in KenPom’s defensive efficiency rankings in just three games. The absence of Marvin Bagley has inspired Grayson Allen to up his game, and he’s had his three best games of the season. Can he maintain a balance between aggressiveness and poor decisions? That challenge has kept him from doing his best in the past.

Xavier 

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (10-1)

Xavier could have moved into first place in the Big East if they had taken down Villanova had home, but (as we mentioned above) they took a 16-point whipping instead. The Musketeers did a great job on the boards, only allowing Villanova offensive rebounds on 8% of their misses, but Villanova came in shooting hot, knocking down 47.1% of their long balls and shooting 75.9% inside the arc. The big problem for Xavier is their defense in the paint — in the Big East, they are ninth (out of 10 teams) in block percentage and defensive two-point percentage. That will have to change for Xavier to make a deep tournament run.

Purdue

• 2018 March Madness Betting Odds: (10-1)

The Boilermakers’ loss to Wisconsin was really frustrating because they rank #5 in the nation on offense but were just able to put up 53 points — and went eight minutes without scoring a single point. P.J. Thompson and Dakota Mathias combined for just two points, and Thompson has just three points in his last four games. Mathias did have 18 points in the win over Penn State, so things should be rounding back into form. But a Purdue team that can’t score in the backcourt is a problem we’ve seen before.