Final Four MVP Odds

Sportsbook has posted odds on who will be the MVP of the Final Four. Before looking at those, we should establish the odds on each team winning it all, since the MVP generally comes from the national champion. This isn't always true- Curry did win the award for the Midwest region- but it generally is, and serves as a very helpful guideline; From Pinnacle:


These are very interesting. Kansas, a 3 point underdog against UNC, has essentially the same odds as Memphis, favored by 2 against UCLA. These odds establish pretty clearly that the two best teams in the country will be playing on Saturday at 8:47pm EST (approximately).

Now, on to the MVP odds. The first two columns are self explanatory- the player, their school, and their odds. The next is the percentage of the time they have to win for it to be a good bet. Following that is the percentage of the time their team is expected to win it all. Finally, we have the percentage of the time their school wins the championship that they need to win the award for it to be a profitable wager. It'll make more sense with an example:

Rush needs to win the MVP over 6.3% of the time for 15:1 to be a good bet. Because Kansas is expected to win it all 22.4% of the time, Rush would need to be the MVP of a National Champion Kansas team 27.9% of the time for it to be a good bet. A actually think his chances may be higher than that- it's unclear why he's at 15:1 while Chalmers is 10:1. For me at least, Rush is the face of that team. Chalmers has a higher eFG, but I'm pretty sure whomever is voting doesn't care about that (or even know what it means).

As usual with this kind of thing, the three big names- Hansbrough, Rose, and Love- have terrible odds. At Pinnacle, UCLA is +345 to win the championship, compared to Love's +350 to win the MVP. It's pretty obvious that this would be a terrible bet. The same goes for both Hansbrough and Rose. Their odds are just too close to their team's odds to be worthwhile.

The other intriguing one here is Lawson. If UNC wins it'll probably be Hansbrough, but it's far from a lock. Lawson is easily the second most noticeable player on their team, both because of his speed and how often he has the ball in his hands. Unsurprisingly, the only value here is in the longshots. I think Rush at 15:1 is the best look, with Lawson a close second. Ellington and Chalmers at 10:1 are both okay, and everything else is pretty terrible.