NCAA Tournament 2018: National Championship Odds and Dark-Horse Contenders

The 2018 NCAA Tournament selection committee dubbed Virginia as the No. 1 overall seed.

But oddsmakers don't have Tony Bennett's Cavaliers as the likeliest team to cut down the nets inside San Antonio's Alamodome, per OddsShark. That honor instead goes to the Villanova Wildcats, who seemingly received a more favorable draw than their top-seeded peers.

View Bleacher Report's Printable Bracket here

Those two top seeds are closely bunched, while the next No. 1 seed (Kansas Jayhawks) sits behind the second-seeded Duke Blue Devils, third-seeded Michigan State Spartans and third-seeded Michigan Wolverines.

We'll run through the 10 best championship odds below, then identify three dark-horse candidates who could return substantial value to savvy gamblers.

2018 March Madness Championship Odds

1. Villanova Wildcats: Plus-450

2. Virginia Cavaliers: Plus-500

3. Duke Blue Devils: Plus-650

4. Michigan State Spartans: Plus-750

5. Michigan Wolverines: Plus-1,000

T-6. Arizona Wildcats: Plus-1,200

T-6. Kansas Jayhawks: Plus-1,200

8. Purdue Boilermakers: Plus-1,500

9. North Carolina Tar Heels: Plus-1,800

T-10. Cincinnati Bearcats: Plus-2,200

T-10. Xavier Musketeers: Plus-2,200

Dark-Horse Contenders

Gonzaga Bulldogs: Plus-2,500

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There are only three ways to wager on a team with top-20 efficiency marks on both offense and defense. Two involve tabbing a high-cost favorite—either Duke (third and seventh, respectively) or Michigan State (ninth at both ends).

The other option is gambling on Gonzaga's 12th-rated offense and 17th-ranked defense. Those are absurdly strong standings for a team only given the 12th-highest odds of making a championship run.

The major concern with Mark Few's team is the same as always—lack of quality competition. Sure, they went 30-4, but their best-win list is pretty underwhelming: vs. Ohio State, vs. Texas, vs. Creighton and at St. Mary's.

That said, Gonzaga doesn't have an atrocious loss on its resume. Plus, it's not like coming out of the West Coast Conference kept the Bulldogs from reaching last year's title game.

Even though Gonzaga lost some of that team's heaviest hitters, this group is deep and often dominant, as ESPN's Myron Medcalf detailed:

"The Bulldogs are a different team with more versatile athletes. Rui Hachimura is a 6-foot-8 forward averaging 11.3 PPG. Johnathan Williams, a 6-9 forward, is equipped to guard any position. Killian Tillie is a 6-11 NBA prospect who has made 50 percent of his 3-pointers. They also boast a defense that has held opponents to 43.4 percent inside the 3-point line, the No. 6 mark in the nation."

FiveThirtyEight gives Gonzaga a 4 percent chance of winning the title. That's twice as high as Michigan's chances (2 percent) and within arm's reach of North Carolina (5), Michigan State (6) and Kansas (7).

West Virginia Mountaineers (Plus-4,000)

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

The formula for stopping West Virginia sounds simple enough to wonder if the No. 5 seed should be on upset alert against Murray State. Take care of the basketball and hound Jevon Carter on the defensive end, and you've probably found your way past the Mountaineers.

But neither of those tasks are as easy as they sound, especially for clubs with limited preparation time.

Head coach Bob Huggins' Press Virginia defense is relentless. The Mountaineers rank 10th overall with 16.5 turnovers forced per game. They also sit among the top 10 in both block percentage and steal percentage, per Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller. Sophomore big man Sagaba Konate stands third in the country with 3.3 rejections per game.

"We're the hardest-working team in the nation," sophomore guard James Bolden said, per Chuck Culpepper of the Washington Post. "I believe that, and it shows out there every given night."

Corralling Carter is its own challenge. The All-Big 12 first-teamer—and two-time conference Defensive Player of the Year—paces the team in points (17.0) and assists (6.6). He's made more threes than anyone on the roster (71) and converted them at a 38.8 percent clip. He has 11 outings of 20-plus points, eight coming in West Virginia wins—including an early December triumph over Virginia.

The Mountaineers are one of only two teams seeded fifth or lower that FiveThirtyEight feels has more than a one percent chance of winning the whole thing. The Kentucky Wildcats are the other (both 2 percent), but they don't bring nearly the same value (plus-2,800).

Tennessee Volunteers (Plus-6,000)

Crystal LoGiudice/Associated Press

Head coach Rick Barnes' Volunteers look like the forgotten three seed.

Maybe the brutal draw in a South Region that houses Virginia, Cincinnati, Arizona and Kentucky is to blame. Or perhaps people are still thrown off by the lack of preseason expectations for a team that split its 2016-17 campaign with 16 wins and 16 losses.

But for whatever reason, Tennessee's odds are far longer than those of its third-seeded brethren—Michigan State (plus-750), Michigan (plus-1,000) and Texas Tech (plus-4,500).

For the record, the Volunteers are the 11th-ranked team on KenPom.com. Moreover, they're sandwiched directly between Michigan (10th) and Texas Tech (11th).

The Volunteers are really good, sporting a top-five defense and an offense that can rack up points from inside and out. Sophomore Grant Williams, the SEC Player of the Year, is an inside-the-arc bruiser and the team's top scorer at 15.3 points per game. The next five scorers all shoot above 38 percent from distance, and four of them supply more than one triple per night.

Tennessee has won 13 of its last 16 games and had a six-game winning streak snapped by a five-point loss to Kentucky in the SEC championship. The Volunteers beat Kentucky (twice) and Purdue, and they suffered single-digit losses to Villanova and North Carolina.

Tennessee doesn't play like a dark-horse, it's just been positioned as one by the oddsmakers.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of KenPom.com and ESPN.com.