EACH day during the NCAA tournament, hoop maven Tim Sullivan, the Post’s two-time defending Saturday’s Heroes champion, will offer his plays of the day:

Notre Dame (-31/2) over Winthrop: You’ll have a tough time getting us to jump on the Winthrop bandwagon due to the matchup here. Not sure why Notre Dame is such a victim of disrespect here, when the Irish have an RPI of 31 and have won 24 games, including six of the last seven. They have power inside and touch outside.

The lone loss in this recent run was to Georgetown, of all teams, in the Big East semifinals – a game which Notre Dame led by 14 in the first half. This just in: Georgetown is pretty good.

In the end, there’s too much Irish value to pass up here.

Nevada (-11/2) over Creighton: Typically, we try to fade teams that were upset winners in their conference tournaments. Creighton is a quality program, clearly capable of winning games in the Big Dance. But the Bluejays may have peaked when they knocked off Southern Illinois in the Missouri Valley final two weeks ago. Nevada, meanwhile, has to be stewing after not even making the WAC final. We already know – thanks to the police report – that coach Mark Fox is.

Southern Cal (-2) over Arkansas: If Stanford was the 64th team to make the Dance, Arkansas was probably the 65th. And if you don’t know how things turned out for the Cardinal yesterday, ask Jim Boeheim. We’re not high on the Razorbacks’ SEC West upbringing anyhow. The Trojans have had a breakthrough season under Tim Floyd and it stands to continue.

tsullivan@nypost.com