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As we approach the start of conference play in NCAA men’s basketball, the Connecticut Huskies are not favored to get a threepeat after winning two straight national championships.
Depending on which book you look at, their sports betting odds tend to hover between +1500 and +2000 to hoist the trophy again, well behind the favorites (Auburn at +800 and Duke at +850). Tennessee is still unbeaten and is ranked #1 in the nation, but there are several one- and two-loss teams above them on the odds list. College basketball has a longer season than college football, with multiple games per week, so a loss here and there doesn’t hurt your chances quite as much, especially if the loss comes in the first few weeks of the season and/or if the loss comes against another quality opponent.
We see this in the highest echelons of the sport right now – Auburn has one loss, to Duke. Duke has lost twice – to Kentucky and Kansas.
Iowa State has only lost once – to Auburn. Houston has two losses – to Alabama and Auburn. Gonzaga?
Also two losses – to Kentucky and UConn. UConn lost three in a row in Hawai’i a few weeks back, leading coach Dan Hurley to get on TV and rant that he will never go to multi-day tournaments again…but we’ll see.
So we have a good deal of parity, even at the top of this sport. So have you wondered how to choose college basketball picks? Read on for some important factors to consider when betting on college basketball.
NCAA Betting: Top Factors to Consider in College Basketball Betting
Take a look at imbalances in point spreads and moneylines
You’re not going to find imbalances when Gonzaga plays Kansas. There’s just too much research out there when there’s a matchup of national powerhouses. You’re probably not going to find many when powerhouses take on cupcakes, like when Gonzaga plays Pacific. However, when two teams below the national sports media radar take the court, you might be able to find imbalances. One example took place earlier this week when Wisconsin-Green Bay lost at home to Division II opponent Michigan Tech. Wisconsin-Green Bay fell to 2-10 with the loss after letting a late lead slip away. Their coach, Doug Gottlieb, had referred to D-II teams as “Nobody U” after the team had lost to Wisconsin-Milwaukee last week, making the setback even more embarrassing. According to reporting on the game, there was a lot of expectation that Michigan Tech would pull off the upset because their coaching staff has a lot more savvy than Gottlieb, who is a former radio host coaching D-I basketball for the first time. Savvy sports bettors would have been able to leverage that possibility into a nice payday.
You don’t have to troll D-II schedules to find imbalances, though. If you look at your mid-major conferences and track injury reports and recent form, you can often find point spreads that have been set, shall we say, without a lot of research in mind, and you can take advantage of those. All of that brings another factor to mind…the place where the game takes place.
Home court has a huge effect on college basketball
College basketball generally has more of a home-court effect than NBA action does. The players are younger, and they often don’t handle the crowd noise and the ins and outs of travel as well as their professional counterparts. If you’ve ever watched college basketball on television at places like Indiana’s Assembly Hall or Duke’s Cameron Indoor, then you know how crazy the scene can get. You have fans waving elaborate patterns in front of free-throw shooters. You have arenas that are smaller with seating that is closer to the floor than what you find in NBA arenas, which are also built to hold hockey rinks and huge concerts. You have acoustics that can be deafening, as those buildings are designed to get loud as opposed to spread concert sound around in the best acoustic way possible.
Many times, the oddsmakers don’t give home court enough space in a point spread. This is also true when it comes to NCAA tournament games when top seeds have what one might consider “home” games even though the event doesn’t take place on campus. For example, Kansas City almost always hosts sub-regional action, and the Kansas Jayhawks are often a 1- or 2-seed in the tournament. This leads to the Jayhawks getting a game in Kansas City, within easy driving distance of campus. Now that two of the Power 4 conferences spread from one coast to the other, the Big 12 spreads from Arizona to Utah to West Virginia, and the SEC spreads from Florida to Missouri to Texas, long travel is more and more a part of college basketball. Expect to see more road upsets as a result – as we saw last week, when Virginia headed to SMU in the first ACC contest for both games and the underdog Mustangs prevailed.
Stay away from public trends when making your college basketball bets
This is especially important when the most popular teams are taking the court. Such teams as Arizona, Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, and the like get a lot of love from the casual betting public. A lot of these bettors are amateurs placing wagers for fun instead of doing significant research into the actual matchups. The action increases when a game makes it onto national television as casual bettors want to put money on games that they can easily watch. If Alabama takes on Georgia, for example, you have a bitter SEC rivalry, but one that is much closer in football than it is in basketball. If the game is at Georgia and it’s on national television, you might see a lot of money go toward Georgia as the underdog and narrow the point spread. That’s a good time to take advantage of the imbalance and bet on Alabama as Nate Oats’ squad is seasoned enough (and talented enough) to win this game handily, even though it is on the road. You can also find imbalances in the more obscure matchups, but with the nationally televised games involving well-known teams, you can often find these imbalances where the opinions of the betting public don’t square with the reality of the matchups.
Consider underdogs in the futures market
Obviously, as we approach the start of the new year, this is less and less of an option, particularly once we’re well into conference play. However, if you have insight about a particular team and are willing to take a bit of risk, this can pay off. People who knew how much Steph Curry could do made a lot of money when he took Davidson on a respectable run into the Big Dance. If you go back to 2013, at least one team seeded #5 or lower has gotten to the Final Four. We’ve seen teams like Loyola-Chicago and Saint Peter’s take very low seeds and run a long way with them. Understanding form and roster construction from the beginning of the season can make you a lot of money.
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My updated top 10 ncaab rankings
1. Auburn
2. Duke
3. Kentucky
4. Tennessee
5. Iowa state
6. Gonzaga
7. Alabama
8. Marquette
9. Houston
10. MarylandAll teams in the AP top 10 except Houston and Maryland. My system loves the terps and they’re not even ranked yet
— Eric Custer (@ecust23) December 9, 2024
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