Haibo's March Madness SmashCard Picks

March Madness is here! And with it - SmashUp’s first foray into basketball. You know what that means - new SmashCards! With the release of our new March Madness bracket game, we’ve created 15 new SmashCards to be played on teams and matchups. You can see the full set of SmashCards by clicking here.

With the new cards - I wanted to highlight and showcase a few that I think would be good plays for this season. Our Fantasy Frenzy public bracket lets you enter up to 3 brackets so it’s a great chance to try out these new cards!

MUST PLAYS:

These 3 cards are going for $500 - which is an AMAZING DEAL! These are 100%, absolutely MUST PLAYS - they return about 7x the value expected for their price. Reminder that they can ONLY be played in Week 1 - so make sure you play them during your initial Week 1 picks.

These are TEAM cards - meaning you play them on a specific team instead of a matchup. Select who you think is going to win it all, who you think is going to make the Final 4, and which underdog you think can make the Sweet Sixteen and get some massive bonuses. Every player should be playing these cards. Period.

Could Have Been an Email

I really like this card especially for the 1 v 16 matchups in the first round (and Purdue/Queens game and Illinois/Penn). If there’s a blowout of more than 25 points, you get 30 points from the card. Right now, we have some betting lines at Duke (-28.5), Arizona (-30.5), Michigan (-31.5), and Purdue (-25.5). The Florida line hasn’t come out yet but I imagine it will be over 25 as well. Some solid picks there for blowout games.

Matador Defense

Same idea as above. Especially in the earlier rounds - there are going to be blowouts and some very high scoring games. My pick here is a pair of 4 v 13 matchups - specifically 4 seed Arkansas v. Hawai’i and 4 seed Alabama vs Hofstra. Alabama led all teams this year in scoring/points per game - averaging 91.7 pts/game while Arkansas was second at 89.9 points/game. Both these teams are elite offensive teams and should be able to maximize the likelihood of hitting on Matador Defense.

Stocks Stocks Stocks

This is a sneaky strong card - I think one of the most underrated cards here. It doesn’t look as strong face value - but this is one of the few cards that GUARANTEES points - as opposed to getting 0 points if the condition isn’t met. You know you are getting points when you play this card and that makes it good for its consistency. This is one that I would save for later rounds - in week 2 or week 3. The Midwest region is interesting with Virginia and Michigan both in the region. If they meet - that’s the #1 ranked and #5 ranked teams for blocks in the NCAA this year. I would plan on playing this card and waiting until Week 2 or 3 to play it.

Go Chalk

Don’t overthink it. Play it on a 1 seed in Week 1 and take your ten points.

Bombing Threes

The top 3PA teams this season are Alabama - taking 35.3 3 point shots per game, Wisconsin at 32.6, Louisville at 32.3, and Illinois at 31.4. Now this card isn’t just about 3 point attempts, its 3 points attempts as more than half of all your shot attempts. So that means you generally want an underdog or at least a neutral matchup - where one of the main strategies to beat a stronger team is to increase variance by shooting a ton of threes. I would monitor these teams and as they progress further in the tournament - play it on them when they are up against a stronger opponent. For example, if seeds hold, Louisville will play a very strong Michigan State in the 2nd round - might be a good opportunity to bomb away. Another potential pick here is the Purdue vs Queens game. Queens is attempting 28 threes a game (30th in the country) and is going to need an insane shooting game to beat Purdue so might be a good bet that they are going to take a ton of three this game.

Don’t forget to set your picks before games start on Thursday and good luck!