College Basketball Handicapping Articles

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 27 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/26/2016

Hard as it is to believe, this is the final full Saturday of the 2015-16 college basketball regular season. All of the major conferences conclude their regular seasons next weekend, but most of the smaller ones wrap up this weekend and start conference tournaments next week. So it's time to start doing your homework on potential giant-killers for the Big Dance like a Chattanooga (Southern Conference) or Stephen F. Austin (Southland), to name two.

College Basketball Betting and Handicapping: Teams that Could Quit
by Trevor Whenham - 2/25/2016

We are in a very interesting portion of the college basketball season. Every game matters as much as it possibly can right now, but fans and teams can't help but start to look forward to the conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament as they finish off their season. With so much on the line it can be easy for teams to take the eyes off the prize down the stretch in the final games of the regular season.

College Basketball Betting: Weekly Schedule Spot Fade Picks
by Aaron Smith - 2/25/2016

The 11th edition of the College Basketball Weekly Schedule Spot Fade Picks is ready to go. Last season was the first for this article. I'll be looking at schedule spots that could be bad ones for teams throughout the course of the season and then recommending plays based on those spots. We'll track the weekly results throughout the course of the season. For games that don't have a line at the time each article is written, the Bookmaker opening line will be used for grading purposes. All plays will be one-unit plays.

College Basketball Betting: Weekly Big East Handicapping Report
by Dave Schwab - 2/25/2016

The Villanova Wildcats have been the top team in the Big East all season long and the top team in both national polls for the past few weeks, but they could not get past the No. 5 Xavier Musketeers this past Wednesday night in a 90-83 loss as one-point road favorites.

UConn Women's Hoops Team One of Heaviest Favorites in NCAA Betting History
by Trevor Whenham - 2/25/2016

The University of Connecticut women's basketball team is at -560 to win the women's Final Four with more than a month to go before the Final Four. Just take a step back and think about that for a second. There will be 68 teams in the tournament, but you would have to bet $560 for a shot at a $100 profit if they win it all. Insane. What's even crazier, though, is that you can't really argue with the odds.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 24 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/24/2016

It's definitely not too early for the top teams in the nation to start thinking about landing a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And if top-ranked Villanova wins on Wednesday night at No. 5 Xavier, the Wildcats might all but sew one up because they shouldn't lose again in the regular season and would have a bye right to the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. Even a loss there shouldn't knock Villanova off the top line of one of the brackets.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 20 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/19/2016

I'm not going to preview Duke's game Saturday at Louisville, although I love the Cardinals as it's a huge letdown game for the Blue Devils. But one thing to monitor going forward for Duke is the status of starting guard Matt Jones. He suffered a badly sprained ankle in the upset of North Carolina on Wednesday and is going to miss quite a bit of time. Jones averages 11.7 points and leads the team in made 3-pointers with 59 for the season.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 18 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/17/2016

It's a potential payback night for national title contenders and 2015 Final Four teams Kentucky and Michigan State on Thursday night. Both the Wildcats and Spartans were knocked off at unranked schools earlier this season that they now get to host. And I assure you that coaches John Calipari and Tom Izzo will use those first games as plenty of motivation

College Basketball Betting: Weekly Schedule Spot Fade Picks
by Aaron Smith - 2/17/2016

I'll be looking at schedule spots that could be bad ones for teams throughout the course of the season and then recommending plays based on those spots. We'll track the weekly results throughout the course of the season. For games that don't have a line at the time each article is written, the Bookmaker opening line will be used for grading purposes. All plays will be one-unit plays.

College Basketball Betting: Weekly Big East Handicapping Report
by Dave Schwab - 2/17/2016

The best team in the country still resides in the Big East with the Villanova Wildcats in place at No. 1 in both the AP Top 25 and USA Today Coaches Poll. They are 22-3 straight-up heading into Wednesday's nonconference matchup against Temple as 8.5-point road favorites on 5Dimes' board for this Philadelphia Big 5 clash.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 17 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/16/2016

Sure, Duke-North Carolina will get all the publicity on Wednesday night. But the Blue Devils aren't winning the ACC regular-season title and that game likely won't be the most consequential one on the board. That title should be reserved for game that will decide the top spot in the Atlantic 10 Conference, as Dayton visits Saint Joseph's for a big-time matchup. Have both teams done enough to earn at-large NCAA Tournament bids if they don't win the conference tournament? Regardless, someone is going to walk away with a major victory Wednesday night.

NCAA Basketball Handicapping: Betting on or Against Bubble Teams
by Trevor Whenham - 2/15/2016

Paying attention to how the NCAA Tournament bubble is setting up - which teams are in the field, which have little or no shot, and which ones have work left to do to dance - is always a productive way for college basketball bettors to spend their time in February. We can often find teams that will be particularly motivated to put out a big effort - and cover a spread as well - and others that could come out flat.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 16 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/15/2016

I picked Duke to beat No. 7 Virginia on Saturday, so I'm glad the Blue Devils did. But have you ever seen a more blatant travel than what went uncalled on Duke star Grayson Allen as he was drilling the fluke game-winning bank shot? The referees should let the players decide the games and not over-officiate, but that was so obvious. But you aren't going to get the call as an opponent in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke returned to the AP poll on Monday at No. 20.

NCAA Basketball Betting: Top-5 Teams Struggling Against the Spread
by Chris Vasile - 2/15/2016

To be the best, you have to beat the best. That saying has never been more accurate in a single college basketball season up until this year. There have been 13 teams to crack the AP Top 5 in the country; Duke, Iowa, Iowa St, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Villanova, Virginia and Xavier.

Worst College Basketball Teams for Betting Against the Spread
by Robert Ferringo - 2/12/2016

Value is a tricky thing to get a grasp on in betting markets. To understand value you need to have a baseline of what your own expectations for a team are, a keen understanding of what the general public's expectations are, and then a focused insight into how to explain their results in relationship to the pre-understood level of expectations. As we saw with the Top 10 best ATS teams this year there were several reasons as to why they had been so good at the window.

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 13 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/12/2016

Thankfully the NCAA has come to its senses. Instead of insisting that the four play-in games be called the first round of the NCAA Tournament and the Round of 64 the second round, the organization this week announced it will simply call those first games in Dayton the First Four and the Round of 64 back to the first round and Round of 32 the second round. Not that many people were following the NCAA's "stylebook" anyway.

Best College Basketball Teams Against the Spread
by Robert Ferringo - 2/11/2016

College basketball can be an overwhelming sport to follow, either as a fan or as someone who bets on sports. Most casual fans I know adopt a simple, "I just like March Madness" approach to the game because they don't have the time or inclination to follow the hundreds of teams that make up Division I.

NCAA Basketball Betting Trends: Risky Business Backing Top-Ranked Teams
by Chris Vasile - 2/10/2016

The saying "don't judge a book by its cover" came to mind as I started writing this article. Many recreational bettors (squares) will be the first people in line to lay points with any team that has a "(1)" beside their name regardless of who that team is or when and where they are playing. The more informed handicappers of the world know better than to blindly lay points with the top-rated team in any sport - especially in college basketball this year.

College Basketball Handicapping: Under-the-Radar Teams to Bank On
by Trevor Whenham - 2/10/2016

We focus mostly on the big names and the ranked teams in college basketball. That only makes sense. There are so many teams, though, that there are plenty of teams out there quietly producing profits while operating well outside of the national spotlight. Of the 15 most-profitable betting teams in the country right now, for example, just three are from major conferences - South Carolina, USC, and Kansas State. On the other hand, there are the eight teams we'll discuss here that get no attention but are being very good to bettors' bankrolls:

NCAA Basketball Betting 3-Point Play: Three Interesting Feb. 11 Opening Lines
by Alan Matthews - 2/10/2016

The usually-dominant Oregon football team had a down season, but the Ducks' basketball team is making Phil Knight proud as the Pac-12 leader and perhaps the best in school history. OK, modern history because Oregon did win the National Championship in 1939. No. 11 Oregon starts a tough two-game road trip through the San Francisco Bay area on Thursday night at a California team that needs an upset.