The West Region of the 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament is home to the top-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs, who are geared up for what should be another deep run to the Final Four and beyond. However, this region also boasts a lot of heavy-hitters and surprising candidates to muddy up the scene.

Nitrobetting is ready to dish out some timely assists to our bettors all throughout the 2022 March Madness season. This time, we’ve come up with three bold predictions for the West Region of the national tournament, as well as the NCAAB odds to win the national title for several of the teams from this stacked group.

3 Big 2022 March Madness Betting Predictions for the West Region

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— Gonzaga Basketball (@ZagMBB) March 14, 2022

READ MORE: 2022 March Madness East Region Betting Predictions

New Mexico State Stages First Big Upset in the Group

Fifth-seeded UConn is in danger of an early exit, as the New Mexico State Aggies are back atop the WAC and have earned another berth into the Big Dance for the first time in three years. The Aggies won three consecutive WAC titles between 2017 and 2019 but were eliminated in the opening round on all three trips.

This time around, though, New Mexico State has an NBA star-in-the-making in senior guard Teddy Allen. The highly-adaptable Allen is playing for his fourth team already and has taken over his conference, leading the WAC in scoring averaging 19.3 points per game, including a huge performance wherein he scored 41 points against rival Abilene Christian.

A Second-Round Matchup to Remember

As famed Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski prepares for his final dance, there’s not a lot of other basketball masterminds left in the country who can replicate the legacy of Coach K. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo is considered one of those coaches left standing, and Izzo and Krzyzewski are in line for a collision course in the second round after they dispatch their respective first-round opponents.

The No. 2 seed Blue Devils, who are (+1,200) favorites to win the national tournament, are 12-3 lifetime against the Izzo-led Spartans. However, Michigan State (+10,000) is 8-6-1 against the spread in these matchups and did win two of its last three meetings against Duke. If there’s a team that we’re happy for Coach K to lose against, it would definitely be against the seventh-seeded Spartans.

Gonzaga Still the Best from the West

It might seem like a boring prediction, but it’s just that hard to go against the grain of denying the top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs another Final Four appearance. Gonzaga, which is the front-runner in the nation to win the national title at (+325), is the highest-scoring program in the nation led by future NBA prospects Drew Timme and Chet Holmgren.

The only teams that the Bulldogs have to be wary of are Duke (they lost to the Blue Devils by three points earlier this season) and the Texas Tech Red Raiders, whom they could face in the Elite Eight stage of the tournament. The third-seeded Red Raiders (+1,600) gave up a huge fight against the Zags back in December, albeit in a 14-point losing effort. Texas Tech held Gonzaga to just 69 points and 42.9 field-goal shooting, with the tandem of Timme and Holmgren limited to a combined 12 points on 3-of-8 shooting.

In celebration of the 2022 March Madness season, we’re proud to announce the launch of our Nitrobetting Bitcoin Brackets contests for the upcoming national tournament. Sign up for a Nitrobetting account now to get in on the bracket predictions action, as well as many more events such as our Bitcoin Squares and Bitcoin Picks contests all throughout the drama on the courts at The Big Dance!