College Basketball Handicapping Articles

College Basketball Betting: Weekday Primer
by Matt Severance - 1/11/2010

Here is our look at the best games to watch each night this week (Friday, as usual, is a weak night, so go see a movie that night), and I’ll have a weekend Game of the Day story coming Friday – hopefully you took my betting advice on last weekend’s spotlight game: Wisconsin upsetting Purdue.

College Basketball Betting: Connecticut at Georgetown Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 1/8/2010

If you threw the numbers "13" and "12" at me in regards to Connecticut and Georgetown basketball this year my Jeopardy-style response would have been, "What is the number of losses that each team has this year?" Nope. The numbers "13" and "12" are the respective rankings for the Huskies and the Hoyas as they enter their marquee matchup at noon on Saturday at Georgetown. Somehow these two teams, despite significant personnel losses in the offseason, have managed to work their way into the Top 15.

College Basketball Betting: Purdue at Wisconsin Preview
by Matt Severance - 1/8/2010

When choosing the game of the day in college basketball on Saturday, it really came down to three matchups that featured two Top 25 teams: No. 4 Purdue at No. 20 Wisconsin, No. 5 Duke at No. 17 Georgia Tech or No. 13 Connecticut at No. 12 Georgetown.

College Basketball Totals Betting
by T.O. Whenham - 1/7/2010

We are well into college basketball conference play now, so teams have played more than enough games for us to get a sense of what they really are and how we should be dealing with them. Here's a look at 10 teams that have proven themselves trustworthy on totals so far this year - the ones that most consistently stay ‘under’ or go ‘over’.

NCAA Hoops Betting: Under the Radar
by Christopher G. Shepard - 1/7/2010

As the NCAA nightly basketball lottery teaches us this New Year has not been a good time to back marquee favorites like UNC, Texas, and Boston College. Looking below the radar you would have seen Charleston, Arkansas, and Maine as three teams with little chance of covering the spread, but they did and that is why sports investing is a challenge.

College Basketball Handicapping: How to Deal With USC Death Sentence
by Robert Ferringo - 1/6/2010

On Sunday, USC’s administration announced that they were going to self-impose sanctions on the basketball program. The deathblow: no postseason appearances for the Trojans this year. USC will not play in the Pac-10 Tournament and they will not accept an invitation to any postseason tournament.

College Basketball Betting: Weekday Primer
by Matt Severance - 1/4/2010

This is our first installment of the NCAA basketball weekday primer – sort of the big games or storylines to watch each day this week when deciding on those potential bets. Check back for a weekend primer.

College Basketball Handicapping: Betting Conference Games
by T.O. Whenham - 12/31/2009

The turn of the calendar to a new year means the dawn of conference play in most of the major conferences in college basketball. For bettors, that means that our mindsets need to turn the page as well. Conference basketball is very different than non-conference play, and the successful bettors are the ones who can recognize and adapt to the changes.

NCAA Hoops Betting: Under the Radar
by Christopher G. Shepard - 12/30/2009

Now that the holidays are about over it’s time for college basketball to turn its attention to conference play. The best team against the spread in non-conference play has been Texas, who marched out to a 12-0 SU record and 8-1 ATS, earning Longhorns’ backers +690 return on their investment.

College Basketball Handicapping: Leveraging Coaching Tendencies
by Christopher G. Shepard - 12/23/2009

In college basketball players come and go, but the one thing that remains constant for successful programs are the head coaches. For the gambler it can feel like once you get to know a team’s grit (and their cheerleaders) the players are gone soon enough and the cheerleaders have packed on 20 pounds, but it is the head coaches who give each team their personality.

College Basketball Handicapping: Key Players Joining Teams
by Robert Ferringo - 12/22/2009

USC lost to the No. 1 team in the country, Kansas, by 19 points on the road back on Dec. 3. Then transfer Mike Gerrity became eligible on Dec. 18 and started for the Trojans the next day against No. 6 Tennessee at home. And wouldn’t you know, the Trojans hammered the Vols by 22 with Gerrity notching 12 points, 10 assists and five rebounds.

Most Disappointing College Basketball Teams
by T.O. Whenham - 12/22/2009

Most conferences haven't started league play yet in college basketball, and those that have are only at the beginning. That means that almost all teams in the country are still theoretically in contention for a NCAA Tournament bid. Despite that, there are a lot of teams that are all but eliminated, and several that are a lot further away from a potential tournament spot than they were supposed to be at this point.

College Basketball Handicapping: Top 10 Transfers
by Robert Ferringo - 12/21/2009

To this point in the season there has not been a single addition in college basketball that has had a more dramatic impact on his team than Wesley Johnson. By now you should know that the 6-9 swing forward transferred in from Iowa State and, after sitting out the mandatory year, has burst into the Big East and transformed Syracuse from a team with major question marks brought on by defection to a team that is now one of the favorites for a slot in Indianapolis.

Saturday College Basketball Preview: North Carolina-Texas Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 12/18/2009

North Carolina has been struggling to live up to the respect that they have earned as the defending national champions. This weekend Texas is looking to earn a little respect for itself, at UNC’s expense, as they try to make a run at a National Championship

College Basketball Handicapping: 10 Impact Freshmen
by Robert Ferringo - 12/18/2009

In my humble opinion, freshmen are always the most overrated aspect of college basketball. It’s easy for fans, media bobbleheads, and bettors to get sucked into the Hype of this guy or that guy or whoever is supposed to become the next basketball Jesus. Hype is the enemy of solid sports handicapping.

College Basketball Handicapping: Teams That Should Excel in Conference
by T.O. Whenham - 12/18/2009

We are about to enter a transition period in college basketball. The conference season is about to start, and teams are down to their final few non-conference games. Handicapping the conference season isn't as easy as taking the non-conference record and extrapolating it.

College Basketball Handicapping: Big West is ATS Cash Cow
by Robert Ferringo - 12/9/2009

So what would you say if I told you that the Big West is better than the Pac-10 this year? “Of course that is rubbish,” you would say. “Teams like Pacific and Riverside would be buried in the Pac-10 even in a down year. Any one of the teams from the Pac-10 would carve a path of destruction and desecration through the Big West, blasting opponents left and right for the better part of the winter.

College Basketball Handicapping: Syracuse-Florida Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 12/9/2009

I like to say that sports handicapping is mathematics, not magic. But one formula that even I haven’t fully been able to grasp and predict is addition by subtraction. And this year the Syracuse Orange and Florida Gators are perfect examples of how this equation can mean big bucks for their backers.

2009-2010 College Basketball Futures Odds and Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 12/8/2009

Kansas and Texas started the season as the consensus favorites to cut down the nets in Indianapolis this April. And to this point neither has done much to make the general public think to the contrary. However, while I agree that those two schools are the clear No. 1 and No. 2 contenders I would also say that neither is even close to the shoo-in Final Four favorite that North Carolina was heading into last season.

College Basketball Handicapping: Best Unknown Players
by Robert Ferringo - 12/8/2009

Below, in alphabetical order, are my Top 11 best "unknown" players in college basketball. Now, to serious fans none of the names on this list will come as a surprise. But for a lot of casual fans and square bettors the players below may be some names that either you didn't realize or hadn't heard of.