College Basketball Handicapping Articles

College Basketball Betting Advice: Weekly Schedule Spot Fade Picks
by Aaron Smith - 12/13/2016

The College Basketball Weekly Schedule Spot Fade Picks article returns for the third straight season here at Doc's Sports. We are now deep enough into the season to have some idea about most of these teams, and there are more difficult scheduling situations now than there were in the early going. The slate of games this week is a bit light since many schools have final exams this week, but there will be a much bigger slate of games to look at for next week's article.

College Basketball Betting Advice and Help: ATS Studs and Duds
by Trevor Whenham - 12/13/2016

We really don't know much yet when it comes to college basketball. Conference play is about to start, and until it does the schedules teams play make it so tough to draw real conclusions about which teams are any good and which aren't. The sample size is getting big enough, though, that it is worth at least taking a look at the best and worst teams to bet on so far. The best teams won't all stay profitable, and the worst won't all struggle, but there are trends and lessons here for sure. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights of the betting season so far in college basketball:

NCAA Basketball Betting Advice: Differences Between Conference and Nonconference
by Trevor Whenham - 12/13/2016

We are getting close to that magical time of year. The time when people rejoice and life seems like it just couldn't get any better. I'm talking, of course, about the start of conference play in college basketball. Nonconference play can be fun, and we get some marquee matchups, games played in exotic locations, and other reasons for excitement. It all only barely matters, though. It's just an appetizer. The real season begins when conference play gets rolling and every game because crucially important. Lose in November and you can almost always shake it off. Lose in January, though, and it could be fatal.

College Basketball Betting Advice: Handicapping the UCLA Bruins
by Trevor Whenham - 12/9/2016

The UCLA Bruins can do no wrong this year - at least not on the basketball court. They are on a meteoric rise, starting the season ranked 16th in the AP poll but now all the way up to No. 2 in the most recent edition of the rankings. They got to that lofty height by opening 9-0 and, most significantly, by beating the Kentucky team that occupied that second spot in the preseason - at Rupp Arena, no less. It has been a heck of a start for the team.

College Basketball Betting and Handicapping: Michigan State Early-Season Struggles
by Trevor Whenham - 12/2/2016

Things have not gone according to plan for the Michigan State Spartans on the hardcourt this year. And that's an understatement. Heading into the season they were ranked No. 9 in one poll and No. 12 in the other, and several people suggested that they had upward mobility. Yet they lost their first game out of the gate and seemed to like that so much that they have kept doing it.

Big Ten - ACC Challenge Betting Advice and College Basketball Handicapping
by Trevor Whenham - 11/29/2016

November is the time for made up events is college basketball. Some of them are great. Others are ridiculous. For my money, though, the king of the pre-season spectacles in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. It's so simple yet elegant - every Big Ten team plays an ACC team, and the conference that wins the most games is the winner. The ACC has a 10-5-2 edge in the series but has lost the last two.

College Basketball Betting Advice: Early Season Handicapping Strategy
by Trevor Whenham - 11/18/2016

Betting college basketball in November and early December is a unique experience. Most casual bettors are obsessed with football or the early days of the NBA, so they have not yet even noticed that the college season has started. Other sports keep college basketball out of the major spotlight on TV and the web, too. Yet there are a whole lot of very good games being played, and there are plenty of chances for smart bettors to make a few bucks at relatively low risk.

NCAA Basketball Betting: Best Early-Season Matchups
by Trevor Whenham - 11/18/2016

The college basketball season is very young, but it has already started with a bang. There have already been five or six games that have been as good as any as you could hope to see. We can always hope that there will be other classics to come in the next couple of weeks, too. Looking over an always busy college basketball schedule from now until Dec. 3 there are seven games that stand out from the rest both for their potential to entertain and their massive significance to one or both teams involved.

2016 SEC Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 11/11/2016

All we heard last year about the SEC was about the Renaissance that was occurring in this football-centric conference. However, it never quite materialized. And after spending last season trying to live up to the hype surrounding Kentucky, Ben Simmons, and several high-profile coaching hires, the SEC enters the 2016-17 campaign as one of the weakest and most disjointed leagues in the country.

2016 Duke Basketball Predictions with Betting Odds and Expert Analysis
by Victor Ryan - 11/9/2016

Duke enters the season ranked No. 1 in the AP poll and as the clear-cut favorite to win the National Championship. Coach Mike Krzyzewski has built a unit with a seemingly ideal blend of talented youth and proven experience. The hype machine has already tabbed this year's freshman class in Durham as perhaps the most talented ever assembled. It joins a returning group that includes National Player of the Year candidate Grayson Allen and senior forward Amile Jefferson, who averaged a double-double a season ago (11.4 PPG, 10.3 RPG) while patrolling the middle.

2016 ACC Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 11/8/2016

Bloated or loaded? That's the question the 15-team ACC has to ask itself heading into the 2016-17 season. There are very clear tiers in this monster conference. But even so, an unbalanced schedule and a lot of uncertainty is going to make it very difficult to discern who's who and what's what from top to bottom in this league.

2016 Big Ten Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 11/8/2016

I will say that last season was a slightly disappointing one for the Big Ten. They entered the year with no fewer than four potential Final Four teams, and I projected that eight teams would make the field. But the Big Ten sent only seven to the dance, including one (Michigan) that was relegated to a First Four play-in game. The league's highest seed, No. 2 Michigan State, was embarrassed in the first round, and all three of the Big Ten's Sweet 16 participants lost in that round.

2016 Pac-12 Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 11/8/2016

The Pac-12 continues to produce some of the top teams and most explosive talent in college basketball. This year the league enters the season with two teams in the AP Top 10, a Final Four favorite (Oregon), one of the potentially most exciting and explosive teams in the nation (UCLA), and with six of the Top 20 freshmen in the country a bevy of potential one-and-done players.

2016 Big 12 Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 11/4/2016

The Big 12 was easily the best conference in the country last season, sending seven of its 10 members to the NCAA Tournament and posting the No. 1 conference RPI for the third straight year. But heartland hoops is undergoing a transplant this year. Eleven of the top 15 players from last year's All-Big 12 teams are gone. That includes three- and four-year starters like Perry Ellis, Georges Niang and Buddy Hield, to name a few.

2016 Big East Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 10/26/2016

Last season was a banner year for the reconstructed Big East. Once the most dominating conference in college basketball, the hoops-only league will never be able to reach the heights of its predecessor. But if last season is as good as it gets, well, I think everyone will agree that's still pretty damn good.

College Basketball Handicapping: Over- and Underrated Teams for 2016
by Robert Ferringo - 10/26/2016

Unlike college football - whose preseason polls actually play a significant roll in determining the National Champion - preseason polls in college basketball are of little consequence. However, as several writers (most notably, Ken Pomeroy) have pointed out, college basketball preseason polls have been fairly strong indicators of who the best teams in the country will be by the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around.

NCAA Basketball Handicapping: Talent Down Across the Country This Season
by Robert Ferringo - 10/26/2016

Last year was a high-water mark for college basketball. There were several incredible teams performing throughout an exciting and entertaining regular season. There was a level of experience and talent scattered throughout the country that we probably haven't seen at any other time this century. The season was capped by another thrilling NCAA Tournament that ended with an all-time great championship game.

2016 AAC Basketball Predictions with Expert Handicapping and American Athletic Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 10/18/2016

American Athletic Conference basketball has been an under-the-radar bastion for serious hoop heads the past several seasons. Prominent power programs like Connecticut and Cincinnati have been toiling in relative obscurity in a league that was set up with football in mind and basketball as an afterthought. Venerable mid-majors Temple and Memphis has been using the league as a ladder to climb up to "major program" status. And resurgent squads like SMU and Tulsa, thanks to well-regarded coaches, have been fighting their way to NCAA Tournament bids and national prominence.

2017 Final Four Futures Odds and Betting Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 4/6/2016

The ticker tape has hardly even been cleaned up from that crazy, brilliant Championship Game of the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Neither team can likely yet fully process how it ended, though the emotions they face when thinking about 'the shot' will be very different. It was a brilliant end to an inconsistent but often very good tournament. My instinct is to sit back and savor what we saw for a while. There is no time for that, though.

NCAA Basketball National Championship Game Free Picks for Best Props
by Chris Vasile - 4/4/2016

On Saturday, four teams took to the court in Houston to contest the Final Four and fought hard to earn the right to prolong their season and play for a National Championship. After watching both games, only two teams seemingly got the memo to show up.