To take one through
betting the NCAA tournament,
it is best to get the teams from each region and seed
them yourself. It should make no difference to you if
the committee has some team as a #9 when you view it as
a #13. True, it will still be a #9 and playing a #8 but
if you view it as a #13 then you will probably get a
favorable line in playing the #8 seed.
However, be wary of teams that you really don't have a
handle on, the unknowns from the lesser conferences. If
these are seeded fairly high or if the pointspreads are
fairly short when they match up then be advised that it
could be that someone knows something: the unknown team
could be undervalued and underrated as well.
Once you have your own seedings in your mind (who should
really be a #4 in a particular region, who should be a
#10) then you go back to the matchups and make your own
line. The lines are made in the same way you would make
your regular season lines, whether you emphasis power
ratings, defensive stats, free-throw percentages,
current form, records as underdogs or favorites, records
in non-conference games, or what have you.
Once you have your lines then you can go ahead and make
a total for each game as well. The NCAA tournament is
one time when the bookmakers place a total on all
college basketball games so it is good to be prepared.
It can also help in handicapping the game as well and
vice versa, such as when a low-total reveals the
probability of it being a close game or a highly
competitive game between two teams with up-tempo
offenses not only leads to thoughts of an over but also
thoughts of overtime which would make the over in the
contest even more likely.
As we have seen, making a line on a game can also help
in making a total and vice versa. If one has a team
favored by 10 points and figures the club should score
70 points as well then the total on the game ought to be
at or around 130: 70 points for the favorite, 60 for the
underdog. If the posted Las Vegas line then is -4 and
136 then you can see the oddsmaker could be projecting a
70-66 final: this might lead you to play on both the
favorite and the under.
You can see though from this example how fine the line
between winning and losing can be. You have the line at
-10 with a total of 130 and a projected final score of
70-60. The oddsmaker has the line at -4 with a total of
136 and a projected final score of 70-66. The difference
is only six points or 10% of the underdog's projected
total for the game or, in this day and age, two trips
down the court and two three-pointers to change two
winners (side and total) into a pair of pushes (or worse
if the line happens to move to -4 1/2 and the total to
135 1/2).
So while the difference between your line and the
oddsmakers line is seems considerable it is really much
smaller than it looks: again demonstrating why there is
no such thing as a lock. A six-point advantage on the
line and total may look unbeatable but, to repeat, it is
only two trips down the floor or, to put it another way,
a missed three-pointer by your team and a made
three-pointer by the other team.
Of course, a book could be written about handicapping
the NCAA tournament. It's an event, and as with most
events it's important to not get caught up in the hype.
Don't play too many games. Don't take a bad price just
because you really wanted to play a game and other
people got there first. Don't do things you're not
comfortable doing or play teams or conferences you
aren't familiar with. And don't be surprised by all the
surprises.
Every year there are surprises, from surprising upsets
to lopsided blowouts to runs by teams who just didn't
figure to early exits by teams that looked to have
everything going for them to domination by a conference
or two that may or may not have been recognized as a
particularly strong conference going in. However, with
all the conferences involved in conference play during
the latter stages of the season it's hard to say who is
improving the most overall or in comparison to one
another until the tournament begins.
There is also the matter of travel, playing at
unfamiliar venues and having little time with which to
prepare for unknown opponents both in the opening round
games and then again in the second round games which
occur following just one day of rest.
All of this can put a premium on athleticism, playing
tenacious defense, keeping things simple and in-game
coaching though all of that can go awry if a team has
either a hot or cold shooting night at either the
three-point line or the free-throw line (the team that
has a hot night from both can beat anyone, and God help
the team that goes cold from both).
There is also something to be said for experience,
either from a team standpoint or from a coaching
standpoint. Teams that make a tournament run one season,
going farther than people expected them to, should
certainly be given extra weight if they get into the
tournament again the following season. They certainly
know what it takes to play and win in the tournament and
know how to forget the past and concentrate all their
effort on the task at hand.
This is what often enables David to beat Goliath in one
of these tournament games: David knows it only has to
play the game of its life for 40 minutes and it has
nothing to lose and everything to gain. Obviously, if
the underdog was forced to play a seven-game series
against a heavily favored opponent its unlikely the
underdog could sustain the effort long enough to win
four-of-seven games. But in one game for all the marbles
anything can happen.
Special attention should also be given to teams' form
coming down the stretch. By that we don't mean so much
the conference tournament but rather the last
four-to-six weeks of the college basketball season, the
last eight-to-ten games when clearly teams should be
gearing up for their league tournaments and/or the NCAAs.
A team that approaches the post-season with a falling
winning percentage, i.e., one that was highly-ranked
early and then begins to lose a number of games as it
gets deep into conference play is probably one to be
avoided: the club probably peaked too early.
Conversely, a team on the upswing, doing well deep into
conference play, climbing in the rankings or the
standings or in terms of its overall winning percentage,
might be one to watch come NCAA tournament time. This is
true even if the team is upset in its own conference
tournament, provided it plays well in defeat and the
loss can be dismissed as a one-game aberration. If the
club was playing poorly down the stretch, plays poorly
in its own league tourmament and still then somehow gets
into the NCAAs or the NIT it likely won't last long:
such teams usually merit "go-against" consideration.
Not that there are not always surprises but these
general guidelines will hold one in good stead. The
oddsmaker will ordinarily stick with his power ratings
in tournament time so the player's ability to make
superior power ratings, apply subjective handicapping
techniques, analyze team vs. team and coaching matchups
or ferret out powerful historical trends and angles
becomes critical in getting an advantage on the house.
Remember too that no time of the college basketball
season is more highly scrutinized than the NCAA
tournament. While in years past it may have been a time
for the wise guys to step in and take the underdogs or
the lesser known teams after the uninformed betting
public stepped in on the name brand teams nowadays the
line between the betting public and the so-called wise
guys has blurred.
Due to the internet and other means of modern
communication and intensified media scrutiny and
television coverage the betting public is better
informed than it has ever been and just as likely to
play an underdog as the wise guys are. This means the
wise guys have less of an information edge over the
general public and thus are just as apt to play a
favorite as an underdog, to play early as to play late
and, of course, to be wrong with their moves as well.
The oddsmaker too has changed his approach and now is
just as apt to set his line in anticipation of wise guy
action as he was in years past in anticipation of square
action.
It is somewhat ironic nowadays to listen to sports talk
radio from Las Vegas and hear so-called wise guys refer
to square or public action, little realizing that they
now are just as apt to be the squares or the members of
the betting public as anyone else. It's like the old
story about if one sits down at a poker game and can't
figure out after five minutes who the square is then
it's you...
Obviously, each year
betting the NCAA tournament
is different from the year before. Nothing remains
static in either the college basketball or the college
basketball handicapping worlds. What has happened in the
last few years of the 1990's and the early years of the
21st century is certainly different from what happened
in the late seventies and from what will happen 25 years
down the road. But you can still examine those results
in hopes of learning something so whether or not the
patterns and angles repeat you will at least be aware of
what is happening. It is recommended that you get your
hands on some part tournament results and go over them
or go through some dry-run handicaps of the field,
perhaps having a partner disguise the team names
beforehand, just to get a feel for what goes on with the
teams and lines at tournament time.
As for the final game, once you have followed all the
top teams throughout the latter part of the year,
throughout their conference tournaments and throughout
the NCAA's you know, by the time the teams reach the
final game, what the price should be.
When Arizona met Duke in the 2001 championship game it
was clear Duke should have been a four-point favorite,
just because of the way they played down the stretch,
how they were winning, how they had reached the final
game, how the calls and breaks were going their way, how
they were crushing teams in second halves, how they had
the look of a team of destiny. Four points. Two
possessions.
The oddsmaker though opened the game Duke -2 with the
result that it was quickly bet up to where it should
have been to begin with Duke -4. From there it see-sawed
back and forth between 3 1/2 and 4 until game time
although, ironically, the money line on the game (Duke
-180, Arizona +160) was not moving at all. Now, even
though there was only the slight rocking motion on the
pointspread (3 1/2 to 4, 4 to 3 1/2) it stood to reason
that the money line should be going up and down as well.
What this seemed to say was that there was no courage of
conviction on the Arizona side, no on thought they could
win the game outright else they would bet the +160 and
the line would drop.
Meanwhile, on the Duke side, since the price had gone up
from -2 to -4 there was early courage of conviction that
the Blue Devils would not only win but win handily. And
this they did. In this instance the money line on Duke
was the value play.
In both the NCAA Championship game and the Final Four
games (all together the last three games of the college
basketball season) it has been imperative the last few
years to pick the outright winner of the games and not
worry so much about the spread.
by Robert Ross - You can find
his
March Madness Picks at Vegas Experts
