Texas basketball vs. Colgate: Opening odds for Round of 64 matchup

Texas basketball and interim head coach Rodney Terry figured out their fate for the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday (March 12). Texas got the two-seed in the Midwest Region, which pits them against the Patriot League regular season and tournament champs and the 15-seed Colgate Raiders.

Terry and the Longhorns come into the Round of 64 with a record of 26-8 (12-6 Big 12) following a dominant 76-56 win over the top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks in the final round of the Big 12 Men’s Tournament on March 11. Texas has now won four straight games dating back to the regular season finale win over No. 3 Kansas at home at the Moody Center in Austin on March 4.

Meanwhile, Colgate heads into the Big Dance with a record of 26-8 (17-1 Patriot) following a convincing 79-61 win over the Lafayette Leopards in the final round of the Patriot League Tournament on March 8. Colgate has won nine straight games dating back to early February heading into the NCAA Tournament.

Here’s a look at the opening odds between the two-seed Texas and the 15-seed Colgate in the Midwest Region in the Round of 64 for the NCAA Tournament on March 16. This game between Texas and Colgate will be played at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, IA.

Texas basketball vs. Colgate: Opening odds for the NCAA Tournament

Texas opens up as a sizable 14.0-point favorite over Colgate and the over/under is set at 148 (per DraftKings Sportsbook).

The moneyline favors Texas (-1800) heavily over Colgate (+1000).

Simulating Texas vs. Colgate

We simulated this matchup between Texas and Colgate at a neutral site a little more than 400 times through the NCAA Game Simulator. The result we got was Texas winning a little more than 83 percent of the matchups by an average final score of 84-69, which lines up pretty close with the opening odds for this Round of 64 matchup on DraftKings Sportsbook.

Texas and Colgate have never met on the hardwood in the history of these two college hoops programs.

This is the fourth season in a row that head coach Matt Langel got Colgate into the NCAA Tournament. Colgate has made the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three seasons (when possible) as a 14 or 15-seed. But the Raiders have yet to make it out of the Round of 64 in the tourney in the entire history of the program.

Meanwhile, this is Texas’ third straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Last year, the Longhorns made it to the Round of 32 before falling short of the three-seed Purdue Boilermakers. The last time that Texas was seeded as highly as it is this season was in 2008 when it made a run to the Elite Eight under former head coach Rick Barnes.