When LSU and Iowa faced off in last year's paradigm-shifting national championship game, the Tigers overcame their status as 3-point underdogs to beat the Hawkeyes outright and deliver the program's first national title to Baton Rouge. Almost an entire year later, these two teams play again with a trip to the Final Four on the line, and the betting public will once again be backing Iowa.
Monday night's colossal women's college basketball game sees the Hawkeyes as 1.5-point favorites over the Tigers at ESPN BET -- their smallest favorite role since the 2023 national championship, per ESPN Stats & Information; the tight line has moved up to as high as Iowa -2.5 at other sportsbooks. The last time Iowa closed as an underdog was in the 2023 Final Four against South Carolina, a game the Hawkeyes won outright as 10-point underdogs.
For LSU's part, this is just the third time they will be underdogs this season, with the first two occasions being against South Carolina. In both of those games, the Tigers lost outright, but won against the spread.
Across the board, Iowa is receiving overwhelming public support on the spread, attracting 74.1% of the tickets and 76.4% of the money at ESPN BET, which also notes that, with hours to go before tip-off, this is the most-bet game of the women's tournament. BetMGM (71% bets, 76% handle) and DraftKings (67% bets, 71% handle) report similar splits, while Fanatics Sportsbook reports the only negative difference in bet-handle split for Iowa (82.1% bets, 75.9% handle).
The sheer volume of bets could explain the line movement for Iowa.
"I'm expecting this to be the most-bet women's college game we've ever had at BetMGM," the sportsbook's manager of trading, Seamus Magee, said.
"Iowa-LSU is easily the most-bet game of the day and could be for the overall women's tournament," Fanatics college basketball trader Shank Subramani says. "But I don't think it would surpass a potential Iowa-South Carolina finals matchup because [that] would be a standalone Sunday game with major hype for an entire weekend."
Fanatics adds that it has more bets and money on the Iowa spread than the LSU, UConn and USC spreads combined. That said, the moneyline action -- where Fanatics said it has three times as much handle as on the spread -- is where things start to get interesting.
ESPN BET reports that the Hawkeyes (-135) have 51.2% of the tickets and 54.7% of the money over LSU (EVEN), while Draftkings has them with 53% of the bets and 51% of the handle. Fanatics has Iowa with 54.0% of the tickets and 56.2% of the money. However, at BetMGM, it's the Tigers that are getting most of the action to win, attracting 52% of bets and 51% of the handle.
Iowa's biggest test of 2024 thus far will also be significant for the futures market. At the beginning of the tournament, ESPN BET (30.4%), FanDuel (33%) and BetMGM (33.2%) all reported Caitlin Clark's squad as their most-bet team to win the national championship by tickets, with BetMGM saying Monday that Iowa is its overall biggest liability.
BetMGM also reports that LSU has both the third-most tickets (9.2%) and handle (9.5%) to win it all, but the Tigers are ultimately less of a liability than South Carolina (12.8% tickets, 35.3% handle) and UConn (8.6% tickets, 6.7% handle).