Best March Madness prop bets for Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Elite Eight games

The second weekend of the NCAA Tournament finishes up with the second batch of the Elite Eight games, featuring San Diego State vs. Creighton and Texas vs. Miami.

While we have plenty of game preview coverage for both the South Regional Finals and Midwest Regional Finals, this article is going to focus on player props. We are aiming to fade Creighton big man Ryan Kalkbrenner while also going over on props for San Diego State’s Matt Bradley and Texas’ Marcus Carr.

Here’s three player props for Sunday’s Elite Eight action:

3 best prop bets for Sunday’s Elite Eight 

• Ryan Kalkbrenner UNDER 14.5 Points (-110)
• Matt Bradley OVER 12.5 Points (-110)
• Marcus Carr OVER 16.5 Points (-110)

Ryan Kalkbrenner UNDER 14.5 Points (-110)

Kalkbrenner has had two massive performances in the tournament, 31 points in the first round in addition to 22 against Princeton on Friday night, but he doesn’t have the matchup advantages he had in those two games against a stout San Diego State defense.

The Aztecs are a top five defense and are 22nd in the country defending at the rim. I believe that the Creighton offense will funnel through its guard play and attack San Diego State’s drop coverage with pull up two’s, something that Kalkbrenner won’t factor into.

Matt Bradley OVER 12.5 Points (-110)

Bradley was a non factor in the Aztecs’ upset win over Alabama in the Sweet 16, scoring only four points in 19 minutes (due to foul trouble).

However, I’ll count on a bounce back performance for the SDSU guard given that he should get plenty of looks against Creighton’s drop defense with the aforementioned Kalkbrenner manning the paint. The Bluejays allow the 12th highest midrange frequency according to ShotQuality and the Aztecs have the 12th highest frequency on offense, led by Bradley.

This matchup sets up well for San Diego State and I believe Bradley will have a far better performance on Sunday, especially given that he should get plenty of shots up.

Marcus Carr OVER 16.5 Points (-115)

Texas has plenty of bucket getters in addition to Carr, like Timmy Allen and Sir’Jabari Rice, but it’s the former Minnesota standout that is the engine to this offense.

Carr has cleared this total in two of the three NCAA Tournament games and has maintained his season averages of over 12 field goal attempts per game. In a game that has a high total of 149.5, we should expect a ton of possessions and shots from both sides, but Carr’s propensity for midrange two’s is creating the edge in this prop. Texas is an elite midrange shooting team and Miami is 282nd defending it.

I’m counting on Carr getting his high volume of shots and thriving in a potential shootout.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.