The Texas Southern Tigers defeated the North Carolina Central Eagles 64-46 on Wednesday, March 14 in the First Four round of March Madness. Texas Southern covered the spread as a five-point favorite while the game went far under the number of 146. Texas Southern opened up as a three-point favorite and was bet up to -5 when it closed at tip-off.
As a result, Texas Southern will move on to the Round of 64 and will complete the West Region as the No. 16 seed. They’ll square off with No. 1 Xavier on Friday. The betting odds for that showdown will be released soon by BetDSI Sportsbook, but you can expect the Tigers to be a sizable underdog. Not only are they a No. 16 seed, they are just 16-19 overall and really have little business being in the Tournament. They should be about a 20-22 point underdog.
The Tigers have survived to this point, though, and they do deserve some credit. However, beating the Eagles in March Madness isn’t much to write home about. They were merely 19-16 on the season too and an unlikely entrant. Texas Southern was led by Demontrae Jefferson’s 25 and Donte Clark’s 18. The rest of the team combined for just 21 points. The Eagles had a brief lead early in the game but after the Tigers took a 12-10 lead, they’d never relinquish it. The Eagles were awful from the field, shooting just 30.4%, which included a whopping 0-14 from three.
At +100000, Texas Southern was tied as the longest shot on the board to win March Madness and don’t expect anything to change. After all, we’re talking about a team who started their regular season 0-13 before finally putting things together. However, they now have some momentum as they’ve won eight straight games. As for Xavier, they’re among the favorites at +2200. The two sides will square off on Friday with the tip coming at 7:20 PM ET. The game is currently scheduled to be broadcast on TBS.
