College Basketball Odds To Use In Your Favor
Next to the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tournament is the most popular annual event for sports bettors. March Madness sends droves of both casual public players and sharp gamblers to the sports book and glued to the TV set, riveted by the non-stop action in this one-of-a-kind sporting event.
The NCAA basketball odds offer a little something for everyone. Bettors can back their team with a future bet to win the tournament, play their favorite team in select games or take action on every contest just to get their fill.
More serious bettors find value in accurately handicapping teams that normally wouldn’t play each other in the regular season, and these seasoned gamblers find their edge in exploiting weak lines.
However, even if you are a novice bettor, there are some easy ways to make money betting NCAA basketball odds during the tournament, and the fast track to the cash doesn’t even require hardly any thinking.
In short, take underdogs. While the NCAA Tournament is noted for Cinderella-story teams making deep runs, either to the Sweet 16 or, in rare cases the Final Four, the general principle in betting on them goes far beyond trying to pinpoint this year’s new darling dark horse.
It’s simply the practical and historically proven method of success of betting this event. While this has long been the case, it’s more prevalent than ever these days as the college basketball landscape continues to see the gap close between the so-called mid-major teams and their better known counterparts from major conferences.
The fact that there are now more than 300 schools playing Division I basketball has even the playing field talent-wise, as many recruits would now rather go to a lower-profile school and play right away as opposed to riding the bench at a big school. The success of teams such as George Mason, which made the Final Four three years ago, is proof that a mid-major can really hang with the big boys.
If you want to make money in the NCAA Tournament, no questions asked, bet on every underdog in the first and second rounds. This strategy works because, even though oddsmakers have adjusted for the narrowing gap in talent levels between teams, there is still value to be found with the team that is getting the points.
Last year, underdogs were 17-15 against the spread in the first round. Although this is a winning record, it was by far the worst ATS result in years for underdogs, an aberration. Most of the time, you can expect a 65 to 70 percent win ration by taking all the underdogs in the first round.
One major reason is the parity in college basketball. When a No. 12 seed beats a No. 5, or a No. 13 takes down a No. 4, it’s hardly even cause for a headline. This is because the lower-seeded team is usually the tournament conference champion of a mid-major, or the team that finished first in mid-major but failed to win its conference tournament.
The fourth- and fifth-seeded teams are usually second-tier clubs from major conferences that are still given the benefit of the doubt by the seeding committee. Thus, when they meet on the court, more often than not, it’s a much more fair fight than the seeds would suggest. Last year, two No. 13 seeds defeated a No. 4, with Siena routing Vanderbilt 83-62 and San Diego knocking off Connecticut 70-69. There also were two No. 12 seeds that beat a No. 5, with Villanova beating Clemson 75-69 and Western Kentucky defeating Drake 101-99.
Another major factor that weighs in favor of taking the points, particularly early in the tournament, is that these games often are marred by poor shooting. Especially in games involving a team with little or no NCAA Tournament experience, the one-and-done format of the tournament causes otherwise talented players to freeze up and leads to several low-scoring games. Sometimes, even taking four or five points is the equivalent of double that amount in a normal game, when you account for the slow-progressing nature of these contests.
Coaching plays a role in this as well. While you won’t see North Carolina or Duke come out tentative, many inexperienced teams seem to come out with a game plan that is decidedly different than the one they used all season to get there.
That is, they “over coach” with a conservative game plan designed to limit mistakes and give them the best chance to be competitive. This often backfires because the players become stiff and uncertain, following their timid coach’s lead.
But the good news is, the other coach is often doing the exact same thing, which leads to an ugly and boring contest, but one in which you bank on taking the points all the way to the cashier’s cage.
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