College Basketball Odds, Lines and NCAA Point Spreads

Compare today's college basketball odds and lines from Vegas style sports books daily. Odds and lines explanations for all of tonight's games below. Use them with our college basketball expert picks for daily best bets against the spread.

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College Basketball betting is becoming more popular each year. This is known as one of the sports where a smart bettor who practiced proper money management can make some really huge profits. Once a bettor begins to study and understand College Basketball Lines, he or she can gain a better understanding of how the bookies set their numbers. The bookies set a lot of these College Basketball Lines with the public in mind. They know the general public is going to bet on the popular teams every week so there are some great situations to get good numbers by going against teams like this.

It is always best to shop around when looking for the best College Basketball Lines. Many different books release different numbers and College Basketball Lines always tend to differ at each sportsbook. If you are truly interested in finding the best College Basketball Lines, it is always best to have funded accounts at least five sportsbooks.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL POINT SPREADS EXPLAINED:

The point spread – commonly referred to as “the spread” – is the number assigned by the sportsbooks to represent the point difference between two teams for betting purposes. The goal of the spread is not to project how many points that a certain team is going to win by. Instead, the point spread is meant to create a situation where half the wagers that come in on a game are on one team while the other half are on the other. (This is called “balanced action”).

The team with the negative number is considered the favorite. (Example: -6.5) The team with the positive number is considered the underdog or “dog”. (Example: +6.5)

The team that is the favorite needs to win the game by more than the assigned point spread value in order to cash the ticket. For example, if the Syracuse Orange are -3.5 against the Connecticut Huskies they need to win by four or more points to beat the point spread. Conversely, a bettor taking the underdog Huskies in this example needs Connecticut to either win outright or lose by three or fewer points. 

COLLEGE BASKETBALL MONEYLINE EXPLAINED:

A moneyline wager in an college basketball game is a bet on which team will win the game outright, independent of the point spread.

The favorite in a game has a negative moneyline (example: -160). The underdog has a positive moneyline (example: +125). The odds represent the payouts on a $100 wager. So for a favorite at -160 the bettor would wager $160 to win $100. For an underdog at +125 the bettor would wager $100 to win $125.

Again, moneyline bettors are simply trying to pick which team will win the game. The moneyline is the agreed upon payout of the wager.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOTALS or OVER/UNDER EXPLAINED

College basketball totals are a bet on the total combined number of points that both teams will score in a given game.

You can bet totals ‘over’ or ‘under’. If you are betting ‘over’ then you are betting that the combined number of points from the teams will exceed the posted total. If the posted total is 135.5 and you bet ‘over’ then you wagering that 136 or more combined points will be scored. If you are betting ‘under’ 135.5 then you are hoping for 135 or fewer combined points to be scored.

All points scored in overtime count towards the totals wager. If the total number of points scored ends up being exactly the same as the posted total (for instance a 72-66 game with a total of 138.0) it is considered a ‘push’ (a tie) and the bet is refunded.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL FUTURES EXPLAINED:

College basketball futures are wagers on eventual results regarding certain teams. For example, a national championship futures wager is a bet on which team will win the Final Four to cap the NCAA Tournament. Other types of college basketball futures wagers can involve which team will win its respective conference.

The odds on college basketball futures wagers are generally expressed similar to a moneyline. For example, Wisconsin could be posted at +1800 to win the national championship. That means that a $100 wager would yield $1,800 if the Badgers won the college basketball national championship.

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