2018 NCAA Tournament Odds Update: Duke, Villanova Atop March Madness Futures

After a wild couple of rounds to tip off this year's March Madness, a few surviving favorites heading into the Big Dance have only strengthened their position going into the Sweet 16.

The Duke Blue Devils currently top the betting board at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark at +325 (bet $100 to win $325) on the odds to win the NCAA Tournament despite being the second seed in the Midwest Region. Duke's path to the Final Four got a lot easier when the third-seeded Michigan State Spartans were upset by the 11th-seeded Syracuse Orange.

The Blue Devils are one of the few teams left in the field who have enjoyed success against the vaunted 2-3 zone of the Orange, who started play in the First Four last Wednesday and have already won three games in the tournament. Duke defeated Syracuse 60-44 as a 13.5-point home favorite a little less than a month ago while the Midwest's top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks handed the Orange their first loss of the season 76-60 back on December 2.

Duke is set as an 11.5-point betting favorite against Syracuse for Friday night's contest.

The Jayhawks appear to be on a collision course to face the Blue Devils in the Elite Eight, and they are +850 to win their fourth NCAA title.

Ahead of Kansas and below Duke are the Villanova Wildcats (+450), Kentucky Wildcats (+700), Gonzaga Bulldogs (+700) and Michigan Wolverines (+800). Top seed Villanova has looked nearly as good as the Blue Devils and has an easier road to the Final Four in the East Region. However, No. 5 seed Kentucky lucked out the most, with the top four seeds in the South Region all going down in the first two rounds of the tournament.

A potential matchup with the seventh-seeded Nevada Wolfpack or 11th-seeded Loyola-Chicago Ramblers looms for Kentucky in the Elite Eight on Saturday at Philips Arena in Atlanta. Nevada is listed at +2500 to win the national championship while Loyola is +5000, just ahead of Syracuse (+6600) as the longest shots in the field. But first, Kentucky needs to get past the ninth-seeded Kansas State Wildcats (+2800) as six-point betting favorites.

Like the South, the West Region is also without some of its best teams after the top-seeded Xavier Musketeers and second-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels both lost on Sunday. The highest seeds left in the West, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4 Gonzaga, could meet in the Elite Eight on Saturday at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Before that though, the Wolverines meet the seventh-seeded Texas A&M Aggies (+2500) and the Bulldogs square off against the ninth-seeded Florida State Seminoles (+4000).

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