Here are all the current college basketball handicapping articles
from Maddux Sports.
College basketball is becoming one of the most popular sports
to bet on due to the fact of the amount of games that are
available to place bets on. For a five month span from November
to March there is a plethora of games for which to bet every
night. For the beginning bettor this can be very intimidating
task. With so many options for what games to bet on, the beginning
bettor might not know what to look for and be overwhelmed
by the amount of choices to choose. However, I will outline
what you can look for in order to make this task less daunting
than it may seem.
I love college basketball - can't get enough of it.
That's part of why I find this time of year so interesting
- teams are practicing and getting ready for the season, but
there is so much else going on in sports that few people notice.
The first few weeks of the year in the college basketball
season are a huge opportunity for bettors who are ready for
the. That means that now is the ideal time to be getting prepared
for the season so you are ready to go as soon as games start.
It really doesn't take too much to give yourself a big
edge over the betting public. Here are five things you can
be doing now to get your edge:
Before we know it the college basketball season will be underway.
Early in the season the sport doesn't get a whole lot
of betting attention. The problem is that it just doesn't
get much attention because there is so much else going on
- the NFL and college football are getting really interesting,
the NBA is under way, and the NHL is at full steam. I've
talked to a lot of bettors who don't start betting college
basketball seriously until the new year. Others, though, can't
wait for the games to start and think that November and December
are the best months to bet on the sport. Let's look
at the pros and cons of betting the early games in the college
basketball season.
People who spend a lot of time handicapping college basketball
are obviously very sophisticated in their approach. People
who only do it casually or are just starting out typically
look at a few predictable factors - the records of the teams,
the conferences they play in, the performance of the high
profile players, and so on. Those casual bettors will likely
find that while those factors are important they are not significant
enough to consistently pick out winners. New college basketball
handicappers and casual bettors could easily and dramatically
improve their winning percentage and the state of their gambling
bankroll with this betting advice by looking at these five
under-appreciated factors.
Not long after the nets are cut down and the NCAA Championship
is over for the year you can bet on who you think is going
to win the next edition. It's always intriguing to see
what the futures have to say about the teams and their chances
for the next season. It's typically not much of a betting
opportunity, though - tying up your money for that long would
require a lot more value that you can usually get. Every so
often, though, there is a future price that is s attractive
that it makes sense to bet on the team as soon as you can.
Here are four situations in which a bet far in advance could
make sense in college basketball.
In College Basketball the best time to place bets during
the season is the first week in January when conference play
begins. The reason being is that usually non-conference games
for teams in the larger conference are basically warm-up games
for their upcoming season. There are some exceptions to this
rule, but more often than not, a school will schedule cupcake
games which in turn will raise spreads for these games very
hard to cover. That is why the advent of conference play will
really ensure a level playing feel and will allow you to have
a more accurate base of comparisons between the two teams
competing. Below I will outline what your focus can be on
that will allow you to be much more informed before placing
your bets during conference play.
Guys like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, and Derick Rose
have done bettors a disservice. Those guys have shown what
is possible when a ridiculously talented young player is given
a leadership role on a team. They were very successful in
their one year in college - especially Anthony - and then
went on to shine in the pro game. Because of them and others
the expectations are very high every year when the hyped,
heavily recruited young freshmen - the ones who are sure to
be one-and-done - hit the field. The problem for bettors is
that the expectations are so high with these players that
it is particularly tough betting on these players and these
teams. That means that we have to be particularly sure of
our handicapping early on - before we have a good sense of
what the players are actually capable of at the college level.
It's definitely an inexact science, but here are seven
questions you can ask to help you judge how the player measures
up early on, and where the betting opportunities might be.
The closer we get to Tournament time, the more value there
is for college basketball bettors in being able to spot good
teams that are flying under the radar. When March rolls around
there are always teams that the betting public and the mainstream
media don't see coming - good teams that perform very
well despite little attention. These teams - whether mid-majors
or low profile teams from major conferences - are always painted
as Cinderella teams that have come from nowhere to perform
miracles. The truth is, though, that these teams have been
out there doing their thing all along - you have just had
to know where and how to look for them.
When you are thinking about handicapping the college basketball
season what you are really doing is handicapping seven different,
distinct mini-seasons. Each one is unique because the motivations
and levels of preparedness of teams are different in each
case, and that changes how successful bettors approach each
segment of the season. The changes are often subtle, but being
aware of them can give you an edge that will add to your bottom
line. Here's a look at the seven segments, why they
are unique, and how to compensate for them.
There is still a whole lot of college basketball left to
play this year. It would be dangerous to assume that we really
know how good or bad teams really are - or are going to be
by the end of the year. We can't help but be surprised
by some of what we have seen so far, though. Teams that get
off to a surprisingly fast start can be tough for handicappers
to deal with. When a team jumps out of the gate with surprising
power then we have to determine if they are for real, or if
what we have seen is just an illusion. Reading a team wrong
can be costly - especially because the public is going to
tend to buy into any fast start, so value can be hard to find
if you like the team. Here are five questions you can ask
yourself as you try to determine how sustainable a fast start
is.
By the time we get halfway through the college basketball
season we are able to have a pretty strong sense of what teams
have to offer bettors. More significantly, we've already
seen teams go through changes. Some teams start out very strong
and then falter as the season progresses and conference play
starts. Other teams struggle early on but really find their
stride with some experience. In a lot of cases these changes
in the way a team are playing are obvious and well covered
by the media. Quite often, though, the changes don't
get noticed. If you notice a change that he general public
hasn't noticed - and your perception of the team is
more accurate than the general perception as a result - then
there is a very good chance at finding attractive value. Here
are five ways to quickly get a sense of the direction a team
is moving in during the season.
A growing trend in sports betting is the betting on the second
half of a college basketball game. However, this bet is not
for everyone as it is a bet that has to be made at the spur
of the moment. You have until the end of the first half until
the beginning of the second half to make your bet and for
a lot of bettors this is just not enough time to be able to
make a decision. However, there are many advantages to betting
on the second half spread and I will cover the process by
which you can evaluate the benefits to making this bet.
Tempo - a simple term and a simple concept that provide quick
and valuable insight into what happened in past basketball
games, and what is likely to happen in future ones. It's
impossible to watch every game played - or even a significant
percentage of them. By using tempo, and by extension tempo-free
stats, you can use the boxscores to get a good sense of what
actually happened in a game - not the deceptive story that
the final score and traditional stats can tell.
Everybody loves an upset - the kind when a scary Goliath
is knocked down to size by the most unlikely of Davids. It's
exciting to watch, and it's especially exciting because
we often don't know they are going to happen until they
have happened. These upsets are particularly common in college
basketball because the top teams play several games a year
against teams that should be badly outmatched, so there are
plenty of opportunities for a shocker. Spotting those massive
upsets can be very tough for bettors to do. What can be easier,
though, is figuring out how to deal with the team that pulled
off the upset in their next game or two. There can be opportunities
there, but you have to have a sense of how the team is going
to react to the upset. Here are six questions you can ask
to get a sense of how a college basketball team might respond.
With the arrival of the college basketball season handicappers
who are focusing on the sport are left with an interesting
debate - should they be a generalist or a specialist. Generalists
look for the most attractive games played on a given day,
while specialists focus their attention on one conference
and get to know the intricacies of each team in that conference
and how they relate to each other. Specialists rely on their
specific and detailed knowledge of teams and matchups to find
their edge, while generalists will have to replace that knowledge
with math, statistical knowledge, or a knowledge of trends
and situations. The different approaches will appeal to different
people based on their interests and strengths, so there isn't
one that is the right or bettor one. Here's a look at
some of the advantages and disadvantages of being a specialist
and focusing on just one conference.
Anyone who bets on college basketball regularly knows that
it is not at all uncommon to see big spreads - double digit
monsters. These lines are always tough to handicap because
the favorite can win the game easily and still not come close
to covering the spread. You really have to handicap these
bug lines on a game by game basis to have the best shot of
making a profit over the long term, but there are some questions
you can ask that are definitely applicable in most situations
- at least as a starting point.
We don't see a lot of midseason coaching changes in
college basketball. Sometimes, though, a situation is bad
enough that teams just have to make a change - just like Wyoming
did in early February of 2011. When those changes happen they
can create a really powerful opportunity for bettors. The
public is automatically going to assume that a team that makes
a change like this is in trouble, and they are going to be
negative about their chances. If the team can perform better
than expected right after the coaching change, then, you can
find potentially strong value in betting on the teams and
their new coach. Here are five questions to ask to determine
whether a team could be strong after the coaching change and
if they present a betting opportunity.
Because there are so many teams playing in so many different
leagues college basketball can be really intimidating for
a lot of bettors. To combat that problem a lot of public bettors
rely heavily on public and media perception of teams - basing
their opinions on what they read and hear from the media.
Because of that, one of the real gems for handicappers to
find is a team that the media likes that is clearly overrated.
If the media likes them then the public will like them, so
if they aren't as good as they appear to be then there
will likely be very nice value in betting against them.
When it comes to betting on college basketball, smart bettors
know that coaches really matter. College players are young
and inexperienced, so the guidance of a coach can make the
difference between a bad team and a great one. Coaching is
obviously important in every sport, but the impact of a coach
on a day to day basis is more significant in college than
anywhere else.
One of the concepts we hear a lot about when handicapping
college basketball is the importance of returning starters.
The basic theory is simple - the more returning starters a
team has, the more comfortable they are going to be with the
demands of their coach and the speed of college basketball,
and the more effective they will be. It's a widely held
theory, and a reasonably sound on e- at least in general terms.
Like most easy to state theories, though, it's not quite
as straight forward as it might seem. Here are six things
to keep in mind when you are attempting to measure the significance
of returning starters for a particular team.
For handicappers it can be a real challenge to assess situations
when a key player is returning to action after a long absence.
Whether it's in the postseason or the regular season
handicappers need to be sure they can quickly get a sense
of what is likely to happen so that they know how it impacts
the team, their games, and ultimately the value. Here are
seven questions to help assess what impact a long-absent returning
player can have.
Read the full article on
Injured
Stars Returning
There are a variety of factors that come into play when betting
on NCAA college basketball. Besides your basic statistics,
home-court advantage, and scheduling, there is another aspect
that can influence the outcome of a game significantly –
the revenge factor. When you look at the latest odds to figure
out which lines carry value and which ones you want to stay
away from, make sure to take previous meetings between the
two teams into account. The revenge factor doesn't influence
every second meeting, and sometime players don't let
previous performances influence them.
Some made for TV events work better than others. One of the
best, form both a spectator and a betting perspective, is
ESPN's BracketBuster. The annual event which comes around
late in February every year creates some real drama, and some
real value. Some background if you aren't familiar with
the event: Before the season starts several participating
mid-major conferences - 15 conferences and an independent
- designate teams to be eligible for the event. Last year
there were a total of 114 teams that were made eligible. Early
in February ESPN in conjunction with those conferences look
at the teams that are eligible and crafts the best possible
non-conference games to be played in the third week of February.
Read the full article on
Bracket
Buster Picks
There are more neutral site games played in college basketball
than in any other sport. there are actually more played in
college basketball than all other sports combined. That means
that neutral site games have to be on the mind of college
basketball handicappers to a much higher degree than they
do for handicappers of other sports. You can out-think yourself
if you worry too much about these games, but if you ignore
the impact of the setting entirely then you are doing yourself
a disservice. Here are four questions to ask yourself when
thinking about neutral site games in college basketball.
As we get closer and closer to the start of the college basketball
season every handicapper who loves the sport is looking for
ways to get an edge out of the gate. One of the best ways
to do that is to attempt to spot teams that could be significantly
better than they were last year. Breakout teams often provide
real value for a while because it takes a while for the media
and the betting public to catch on to how well they have improved.
Here are five ways to spot teams that could be ready to improve
dramatically.
