2018 Mountain West Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/6/2018

The Mountain West might not be as tough as it once was - in 2013 it was the No. 4-rated league in the country and sent five of its nine teams to the NCAA Tournament. But what the league lacks in top-end talent it makes up for with intensity and experience. This year's field includes a dominant Nevada team that went 15-3 in league play and worked its way into the Top 25. But beyond the Wolf Pack there are six more teams that also host realistic hopes of knocking off the top seed and stealing another bid for this proud league.

2018 Conference USA Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/6/2018

I know you don't watch Conference USA basketball. I know you don't know anything about these teams and even less about these players. But believe me when I tell you: this year CUSA has been one of the best and most competitive mid-major leagues in the country.

2018 Sun Belt Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/6/2018

Louisiana dominated the Sun Belt this year, winning the regular-season title by four full games. However, there are three other teams chomping at the bit to get a shot at the Ragin' Cajuns, and there is nothing to guarantee that Bob Marlin's squad is going to leave this weekend's tournament unscathed.

2018 ACC Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/5/2018

This year's Atlantic Coast Conference could become just the third league in history to send 10 teams to the NCAA Tournament. That could happen despite the fact that, by my estimation, the ACC is no better than the third-best conference in the country. (Take your pick between the Big 12, SEC and Big East for better leagues.)

2018 Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/5/2018

It has been a rough year for the Atlantic 10. This league is currently ranked No. 11 in the country, its lowest rating in over a decade and the first time since 2007 in which they weren't in the Top 10 conference in the country. And if form holds this could be the first season since 2007 in which fewer than three teams from the A-10 make the NCAA Tournament.

2018 NCAA Tournament Projections and Expert Bracketology
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2018

I know that speculating about who will make the field is seemingly part of the fun of college basketball. But, frankly, it drives me nuts. Snake-oil salesmen like Joe Lunardi, whom I've exposed as a loser time and time again, have tried to add a veneer of credibility to projecting the NCAA Tournament field. However, guys like Lunardi are nothing more than common trolls who use their invented positions as college basketball soothsayers to sway the national discussion about (and in turn have a real impact on) the NCAA Tournament.

2018 West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2018

The only thing interesting about the West Coast Conference Tournament is the prospect of a rubber match between its two best teams, Gonzaga and St. Mary's. But then again, since Gonzaga is 4-0 against the Gaels in their last four league tournament meetings, can we even say that matchup would be all that interesting?

2018 Big Ten Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 2/27/2018

The Big Ten has been a bit of an afterthought in college basketball this year. Michigan State fulfilled their preseason expectations by winning the regular-season title with powerhouse Purdue nipping at their tails. But beyond that the story of the league has been one of disappointment.

2018 Missouri Valley Conference Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 2/27/2018

Creighton is gone. Wichita State is gone. The Missouri Valley's shifting roster has created a power vacuum. And without Creighton and Wichita State in their way you can feel the hopefulness that the current crop of Valley programs have since their odds of winning the league's automatic bid have shot up.

2018 Southern Conference Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 2/27/2018

At the mid-major level, the conference tournaments are the one shot that teams have at earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament. And for seniors, the conference tournament has the dual pressure of being potentially the end of players' careers. Combine those stakes, and every March you get some of the most emotional situations in college sports.

2018 MAAC Basketball Tournament Odds and Expert Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 2/27/2018

The 2018 MAAC Tournament will be held from Thursday, March 1, to Monday, March 5, with the winner securing the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The tournament will be played on Siena's home court, the Times-Union Center, in Albany, New York.

NFL Playoffs Expert Betting Advice: Divisional Round Trends
by Robert Ferringo - 1/11/2018

When it comes to NFL Playoffs betting I am a bit more of a macro-handicapper. Rather than delving into individual matchups of games, I like to take a step back and look at the broader and longer-term trends for each individual round of the postseason. We're dealing with the best of the best football teams. The margin for error at this time of year is razor thin. And sometimes gamblers can lose some perspective in the forest of stats, trends, angles, matchups and storylines with which they are bombarded in the week leading up to one of the best football weekends of the year.

NFL Power Rankings Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/26/2017

God, I hate Week 17 of the NFL season. Momentum and motivation are the two buzzwords this week. But the problem is that it is nearly impossible to gauge how these men are going to respond to wildly divergent motivations this weekend. Some teams are playing for the postseason while others are playing out the string.

NFL Power Rankings Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/19/2017

The favorites pummeled the sportsbooks again last week, going 10-4 against the spread. (The Patriots-Steelers and Cowboys-Raiders games were both a 'push' at most books). That now means that blindly betting the NFL favorites has turned a profit in six of the last seven weeks, and over the course of the last six weeks the chalk has posted a gaudy 57-33 ATS mark (63.3 percent).

NFL Power Rankings Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/12/2017

Very few things annoy me as much as listening to people that think they know about football betting talk about football betting. They always have the same talking points about "sharps" and "underdogs" and "line movements" and "the public". But, generally speaking, the overwhelming majority of people outside of industry-specific media have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the NFL betting market.

NFL Power Rankings Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/5/2017

As we come down the stretch of the NFL regular season, all of the attention shifts to the high-intensity battles for postseason positioning. Whether it is divisional races, battles for the No. 1 seed in each conference, or the desperate scramble of teams for that final Wild Card position, the best teams in pro football will be front and center over the final four weeks of the NFL season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 11/28/2017

Every week I look around the NFL and laugh at some of the quarterback matchups. Blaine Gabbert? Blake Bortles? C.J. Beathard? Tom Savage? Quarterback play in the NFL has never been worse than it is right now at this moment in our history. But last week I found a position group that may be even more pathetic than the current crap crop of signal callers: NFL coaches.

Expert College Football Handicapping: Alabama Doesn't Deserve Playoff Invite
by Robert Ferringo - 11/27/2017

Alabama absolutely, positively should not make the College Football Playoff. And there is no coherent argument that anyone in the United States can make to the contrary. The Auburn Tigers manhandled the Crimson Tide 26-14 last Saturday, dealing Alabama its first loss of the season. That defeat eliminated Alabama's hope for an SEC West or an overall SEC Championship. And when the most recent college football rankings were released on Monday, it prompted the Tide to drop from No. 1 to No. 5.

South Florida Bulls at Central Florida Golden Knights Expert Picks with Odds and Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 11/21/2017

No one anywhere in the country predicted that the South Florida-Central Florida rivalry game on Thanksgiving weekend would be one of the most consequential football games played in The Sunshine State this season. However, Florida State and Florida have gone off the rails this season. And Miami has only played two truly big home games (vs. Virginia Tech and vs. Notre Dame) this season. So with two Top 20 teams and a spot in the conference title game on the line, this USF-UCF game is one of the most important games in this football-rich state this college season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/21/2017

It's Thanksgiving week, so this will be the rapid-fire version of Doc's Sports NFL Power Rankings. And with that in mind, let me take this time to let you know what I am thankful for: The New England Patriots. I know that after the Dallas Cowboys the Patriots are the most hated team in the NFL. And I am not going to make any value or moral judgments on their litany of crimes against sportsmanship over the past 20 years. Their fans are easy to hate. A lot of their players over the years have been easy to hate. Bill Belichick is eminently hateable. I understand.