Happy Wednesday betting friends. We’ve hit March, which means no more football, but tons of basketball on the NBA and college courts, NFL golf, and coming soon, baseball!
You know that I only recommend tools I actually use, and PoolGenius is what I’ll be using this year when I build out my March Madness brackets and play in a few NCAA Survivor pools.
They’re offering discounts for the Betting with Bearman family if you want to check it out.
One thing a lot of people miss with bracket pools is that winning isn’t really about predicting every game correctly — it’s about understanding what everyone else in your pool is picking and finding the right spots to differentiate. PoolGenius shows public pick rates alongside win probabilities and then generates optimized brackets based on your pool settings, which makes the process a lot more strategic.
They also have an NCAA Survivor tool, which is pretty unique. If you’ve played NFL Survivor, think of NCAA Survivor as packing an entire NFL Survivor season into about three weeks — with even more strategy because of how the tournament works. Their tool grades every possible pick based on win odds, popularity, and how saving teams for later rounds impacts your chances to survive the pool.
If you want to get a feel for the strategy side of survivor pools, their NCAA Survivor Strategy Guide is a good place to start:
They also have an article covering where to play NCAA Survivor Pools if you’re looking for one.
I’ll be using it when I put my brackets together next week, and if you’re looking for an edge in your bracket or survivor pool this year, it’s definitely worth checking out.
While we give out one of our golf plays for free tonight in the newsletter, our full Players Championship card, NBA props/side, College Basketball and NHL plays are all worth an upgrade at the current $99/year plan as you don’t want to miss weekly NFL and CFB week picks this fall. One $99 price (or $9.99/month) will get you every single newsletter unlocked, all our trends and picks and access to me of course.
Also make sure you listen to the weekly Betting with Bearman podcast. Last week, we had FanDuel Betting analyst Minty Bets on to break down UFC 326. This week, my buddy Tim Murray from VSiN joins us to talk all things March Madness.
We are excited about our affiliate deal with our new friends at Betr. Through our partnership, you can sign up now and get $10 free and then a 50% deposit match up to $200 by using the Betting with Bearman sign up link, right here. We are also going to be sending out Betr plays every newsletter!
Today, we are going to give a free one, which is our FRL plays for Thursday, so here is the Betr play today. We are rolling with two players on Thursday. This is for Round 1. Make sure to check me out on Twitter/X for more daily Betr plays.
Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass
We've had some big-time events already this season with Signature events at Pebble Beach, the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, and of course, last week at Arnold Palmer’s event at Bay Hill.
Each of those events brought its own challenges with strong fields and tough courses. Now, the Tour takes it up an even higher level with the 2026 Players Championship at famous TPC Sawgrass. Some call it the "5th major," and others call it the truest test of golf. Between the Pete Dye design at TPC Sawgrass, water on 17 of 18 holes, and the need to not only be accurate, but creative with your tee-to-green game, the "A" game is needed to win this event.
Recent form has defined success over the last five years. Per CBS SportsHQ’s Jason Sobel, of the 26 players to finish in the top-five over the last five years, seven already had owned a victory that year, 13 had a top-five finish that year, 21 had at least a top-10 finish, and 25 of the 26 had a top-15 finish in the two months prior to the event.
Collin Morikawa to win (+2100), top-10 finish (+190)
We are coming out firing with someone who meets both criteria above and one of the top metrics we are using this week: approach.
Morikawa is a two-time Major winner and has a win on his card earlier this year, taking home the title at Pebble Beach, ending a long drought.
But he has not just sat on that win, earning a T-7 at Genesis and 5th place last week at the API. There may not be a player in better form than Morikawa entering this event.
He's 5th in shots gained approach, 3rd tee-to-green, and 8th in shots gained overall. The putter is what has prevented Morikawa from entering Scottie territory (105th overall), but he finished the last two events in the top-25 in shots gained putting, a week after winning at Pebble barely cracking the top 50.
Kawa finished T-10 here last year and T-13 in 2023. Not as much success as others on my card at Sawgrass, but more important is his recent form, which is as good as anyone's.
If you like value, Kawa is getting 6x odds over Scheffler, who hasn't been himself the last two weeks and almost double the odds of Rory, who has back issues.
Stick around for the rest of the Players Championship card, our NBA action, an NHL first period play, and our favorite CBB plays of the night.
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