Betting odds released on NCAA Tournament Norman Regional

The betting odds for the 2024 NCAA baseball championship tournament have been revealed. When it comes to the Norman Regional home of the Oklahoma Sooners, it is not the host team with the best odds to reach the Super Regional round.

Out of the gate, the No. 2 seed Duke Blue Devils are the favorites to advance, holding a slim margin and odds over Oklahoma. As far as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds are concerned, UConn and Oral Roberts are both considered long shots to move on in the tournament.

The complete odds for the entire 64-team tournament, courtesy of Draft Kings, can be seen below.

Duke +115

Oklahoma +145

UConn +600

Oral Roberts +1200

As mentioned above, the No. 2 seed Duke Blue Devils are the favorite to upset the Oklahoma Sooners, but just by a narrow margin of 30 points. Uconn comes in third with middle-of-the-pack odds in comparison to the rest of this 64-team field. And while Oral Roberts has the lowest odds in the region, at +1200, Vegas does not see them as a Cinderella-like some of the other programs boasting +10000 odds.

Tell of the tape: toss-up between Oklahoma and Duke

The Sooners and Blue Devils are quite possibly the closest No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the tournament this year. Oklahoma finished the 2020 fourth season as the Big 12 regular season champions but lost to in-state rival Oklahoma State in the conference tournament championship game 9-3. Duke, on the other hand, was not the ACC’s regular-season champion but did dominate the conference tournament. The Blue Devils averaged over ten runs per ACC tournament game, including a drubbing of the top team in the conference, the Florida State Seminoles, in the championship game 16-4.

Diving deeper into the similarities of the two programs, Oklahoma finished the year with a 37-19 overall record, 18-11 at home, and an RPI rank of No. 15 — largely thanks to their success against RPI top 50 teams where the Sooners went 23-12 on the season. In comparison, Duke finished the year 39-18, Had a respectable 11-8 road record, and finished right behind Oklahoma in RPI an No. 16. Duke took care of business against lower-ranked teams finishing with an 19-3 mark against teams with an RPI ranking between 51 to 200. However, against top-50 teams, the Blue Devils finished the year 20-15.

Taking a page out of the battle between the Big 12 and ACC on the hardwood, Oklahoma’s ranking was boosted by the Big 12 portion of their schedule. In terms of non-conference opponents’ RPI, the Sooners ranked 72. Duke’s non-conference RPI was significantly higher, ranking No. 33.