Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2010

Time for a little Arch Madness. For the 20th straight year the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament tips off Thursday in St. Louis with everyone chasing top-seeded and 25th-ranked Northern Iowa. Unfortunately for Northern Iowa, the Missouri Valley tournament has been fairly predictable. And the No. 1 seed hasn’t had as much luck as you would think.

College Basketball Handicapping: Mid-Major Conference Tournaments
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2010

These small, regional teams aren’t playing for banners as much as they are playing for pride and bragging rights. Sure, everyone wants a trip to the Big Dance. But as you wander through the smaller conferences you’re going to find that the intensity level in these tournament games is maxed out. I mean, no one out of the Sun Belt is going to be playing for the national title. But for four days in Arkansas those 13 teams are going to toe the line and go all-out in order to earn their own regional championship.

College Basketball Handicapping: Villanova at Syracuse Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 2/26/2010

No. 8 Villanova will trek to Upstate New York to take on No. 4 Syracuse at 9 p.m. Saturday. This game will determine the Big East regular season title and should go a long way to establishing which one of these two upper echelon teams will be granted a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. These are the two best teams in the nation’s deepest and most talented conference, and one or both of these teams will be penciled into the Final Four on about 95 percent of the March Madness brackets in the country in about two weeks.

NCAA Tournament Projections Updated Feb. 25
by Robert Ferringo - 2/25/2010

I’m going to do my NCAA Tournament projections article a bit differently this week. Right now all we’re hearing about is “bubble teams”, “must-win games”, “good” and “bad” wins and losses, and “Judgment Week”. It’s all nonsense, really. And as you’ll see in a moment, right now the “bubble” is really just 11 teams fighting for six open at-large bids, with about five conferences, outside of the “major” leagues, sitting there with potential bid stealers and X-factors waiting for the conference tournaments to start.

College Basketball Handicapping: Senior Night
by Robert Ferringo - 2/23/2010

Every college team celebrates a Senior Night, generally as the last home game of the season. It’s a chance for the guys playing in their final game in their own gym to say thanks to the fans, parade out their awkward parents, get a little love from the hoops community, and then go out and play with the abandon of someone who sees that The End is near. It’s a night of reflection, passion, fervor and enthusiasm and can provide the host team with just that little extra motivational edge to score a key win and cover a solid spread.

College Basketball Handicapping: Surprising Bubble Teams
by Robert Ferringo - 2/23/2010

Keeping your finger on the pulse of the college basketball betting landscape this time of year is a dizzying exercise. With all of the talk of bubbles, brackets, and Bob Knight it’s tough to keep track of who is streaking and peaking and who is crashing and not cashing.

NCAA Tournament Projections Updated Feb. 19
by Robert Ferringo - 2/19/2010

There was some small moving and shaking in my NCAA Tournament projections this week. And over the next few weeks there will be a lot more action. In fact, I’m sure that at least two teams that I’m certain are “In” right now will manage to play their way out of a ticket to The Big Dance over the next few weeks.

College Basketball Handicapping: Bracket Buster Betting Trends
by Robert Ferringo - 2/18/2010

I've analyzed the last five years of the mid-February mid-major hoops orgy known as Bracket Buster Weekend to see if I could establish any useful betting angles or trends. Instead of working over every single "official" Bracket Buster game I squared my focus on the ones that featuring the mid-major conferences that were routinely wagered upon.

2011 Super Bowl Futures Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 2/12/2010

Some people are still reeling from their Super Bowl party or Super Bowl winner’s parade, and the memories from a great game between New Orleans and Indianapolis in The Big Game are still as fresh as the stains on those clothes or the DWI ticket you picked up that night.

NCAA Tournament Projections Updated Feb. 12
by Robert Ferringo - 2/12/2010

There was some small moving and shaking in my NCAA Tournament projections this week. And over the next few weeks there will be a lot more action. In fact, I’m sure that at least two teams that I’m certain are “In” right now will manage to play their way out of a ticket to The Big Dance over the next few weeks.

College Basketball Handicapping: St. Mary’s at Gonzaga Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 2/11/2010

Kangaroos have no natural enemies. But the St. Mary’s basketball team certainly does. St. Mary’s heads to Gonzaga at 11 p.m. on Thursday night to play in one of the burgeoning mid-major rivalries in the country. The visiting Gaels have been instilled as six-point underdog and the total is set at a healthy 152.0.

Super Bowl Betting Recap
by Robert Ferringo - 2/9/2010

Whenever I talk to people before the Super Bowl they still all say the same thing, “I just hope it’s a good game.” It’s as if the blowouts of the late 80s and most of the 90s still have an impact on the expectations that people have for The Big Game. Well, those days are over. This is now three straight years that we have had games in which there were fourth quarter lead changes. And if you look back at the last 11 Super Bowls there were six that were decided by a touchdown or less and six that were decided on the final drive of the game.

NCAA Tournament Projections Updated Feb. 5
by Robert Ferringo - 2/5/2010

There was some small moving and shaking in my NCAA Tournament projections this week. And over the next few weeks there will be a lot more action. In fact, I’m sure that at least two teams that I’m certain are “In” right now will manage to play their way out of a ticket to The Big Dance over the next few weeks.

Super Bowl 44 Betting Preview
by Robert Ferringo - 2/3/2010

Manning and Indianapolis will face New Orleans at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday in Miami in Super Bowl 44. The Colts are presently listed as five-point favorites and the total is situated at 56.5. The line on this game actually opened at 4.5 and was immediately bet up to 5.5. However, recent action on the Saints has helped pull it down to five and even 4.5 at some books, while still other books have boosted the line to six.

NCAA Tournament Projections
by Robert Ferringo - 1/29/2010

It’s starting to get intense. That’s the most obvious thing that I noticed this week watching the college hoops landscape unfold. Lines are getting tighter, teams are getting more emotional, and things are really starting to tighten up. It’s not exactly the stretch run yet and there is still a lot of ball to be played.

Saturday College Basketball Preview: Kansas at Kansas State
by Robert Ferringo - 1/29/2010

On Jan. 18 the Wildcats welcomed the No. 1 team in the country, Texas, into a raucous atmosphere in Manhattan. Kansas State overpowered the Longhorns to knock off the top team in the land. Now, on Saturday, they welcome the No. 1 team-in-wait, in-state rival Kansas, and are looking to take down another one of the best teams in the country.

Ranking the Super Bowl Winning Coaches
by Robert Ferringo - 1/28/2010

There are only 26 coaches that have ever won a Super Bowl and this year rookie coach Jim Caldwell and relative neophyte Sean Payton are fighting to be No. 27. Chuck Noll is at the head of the class in terms of Super Bowl coaches with the most wins. He was a perfect 4-0 in The Big Game. Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick and Joe Gibbs are right behind him with three wins and then eight other coaches are a pair of rings.

College Basketball Handicapping: Kentucky Not Worthy of No. 1 Ranking
by Robert Ferringo - 1/26/2010

Right now Kentucky reminds me of a little kid trying on his dad’s clothes and shoes as kind of a joke. As of Monday the Wildcats were the No. 1 team in the country in college basketball. I have been banging against the Kentucky bandwagon all season long and I’m hear to tell you once again that they aren’t the best team in the country. Not even close. They are good. They are better than I thought they would be.

Syracuse Stacks Up Well With Classic Florida Teams
by Robert Ferringo - 1/26/2010

Obviously, I’m feeling pretty good about Syracuse right now. I think that they are the best team in the country right now and that’s coming from a guy that is always quick to take a pessimistic stance on his alma mater. The reason that I think that they are the best team and, right now, the favorite to win the National Championship, is that I think that they have every single aspect covered that a championship team needs.

NCAA Tournament Projections – Updated Jan. 22
by Robert Ferringo - 1/22/2010

There are 65 slots in the NCAA Tournament Field. There are 31 automatic bid leagues in college basketball and my projections for the 2010 field show that there are 17 one-bid conferences. That means that there are essentially 48 slots open for tournament teams. That seems like a lot, but when you consider that, by my count, there are 26 teams that have sealed up bids now we’re down to just 22 at-large bids that about 90 other schools are fighting for just 22 openings.