12 College Basketball Handicapping Betting Tips from Expert College Basketball Handicappers
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Top 12 College Basketball Handicappers |
Top 12 College Basketball Handicapping Tips |
College Basketball Betting Advice Details |
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Doc's Sports |
The refs impact early season games… |
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Robert Ferringo |
Relative Conference Strength is key… |
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Raphael Esparza |
Small schools mean big money… |
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Strike Point Sports |
Turn off the TV to find wagers… |
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Griffin Murphy |
Get in mind of oddsmakers... |
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Jason Sharpe |
Misleading final score are crucial… |
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Arun Shiva |
Play totals with active underdogs… |
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Amal Shah |
Home court advantage is HUGE... |
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August Young |
Concentrate on small market teams... |
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Vernon Croy |
Stay away from featured games… |
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Scott Spreitzer |
Focus on returning starters... |
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Tony George |
Bet smaller postseason tourneys... |
Doc's Sports Service is the most trusted and well-respected sports information company in the United States. Below you will find a list of 12 basketball handicapping tips from SOME of the top college basketball handicapping experts in the country. These will help you make the best college basketball picks. Our service is second-to-none in terms of both results and customer relations. In our sixth decade of existence, Doc's Sports is still the gold standard in the sports information industry.
A lot of other people in this industry focus their attention on high-pressure sales tactics and irresponsible betting practices. However, at Doc's Sports, we believe that there is a lot of money to be made in the sports investing market. So, our college basketball handicappers keep their focus on results and showing their clients a profit. It's a win-win situation and the foundation of our success: keep it simple.
We offer our clients top college basketball predictions at one fair price. Our college basketball handicappers release a full slate of college basketball picks at 11:30 a.m. EST daily. Every one of our college basketball handicappers has a different style, but all have enjoyed vast success in NCAA hoops.
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Here are 12 college basketball handicapping tips from our team:
DOC'S SPORTS - The nonconference portion of the college basketball season is still one of the most profitable times of year in any sport. Sure, everyone wants to bet the big neutral-site games in Maui, the Bahamas, or New York City. But I would much prefer BCS Conference teams playing a mid-major on their home floor. Neutral-site nonconference games are much more unpredictable and usually feature shaper lines, and thus these are the type of games I like to avoid. Wisconsin playing Marshall at the Kohl Center seems much more inviting. The main reason for this is that the officials are selected and paid for by the home team and tend to give them the edge in calls in hopes that they will be hired back for future games. This does not happen as much during conference play with the officials being hired by the conference, but nonconference play is a completely different story. Do not be afraid to lay a big number with the home team and expect them to be shooting many more free throws in that one.
ROBERT FERRINGO - The 2024-25 season will mark the 19th season I've released my college basketball picks at Doc's Sports, and I have been one of the most successful college basketball handicappers in the world this century. I'm going for 16 of 19 winning nonconference seasons and looking to add another winning regular seasons. A big part of that is one of the maxims that I've helped create and refine: Relative Conference Strength. The key to RCS is understanding that all college basketball is relative and that understanding how the different leagues stack up to one another is a determinant in how teams will play against one another. This is critical in the nonconference and March Madness portions of the season. You could have a seventh-place team from the Mountain West facing the third-place team from Conference USA. But if the Mountain is much deeper and more competitive then they are going to give that CUSA team a run. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is. Because to have a true grasp you need to follow all 350+ college teams throughout the season. I do. But most people simply don't have the time.
GRIFFIN MURPHY – When analyzing a matchup, it is essential to comprehend the rationale behind the bookmaker's individual odds and lines for each game. Let us employ an illustration. Assume No. 1 Houston is competing against a team such as Tulane. Assume Houston is favored by only -2.5 points in this game, despite being ranked No. 1 nationally and playing at home. One must consider how the market has assigned a price of merely -2.5 to this game. Houston, in actuality, ought to be favored by double digits in this contest. It is imperative to analyze all the games and identify the mismatched lines that you suspect the market has established as a trap.
RAPHAEL ESPARZA - Small schools mean big money. Just like in college football, you want to look at the small schools. It's no secret that in college basketball home-court advantage is huge. But lack of action on those smaller schools can give you outstanding betting value. Bettors always tend to bet the TV games, and smaller conferences don't always get televised. The best times to bet the smaller schools are on Wednesdays and Saturdays, because those are the bigger days in college basketball, and, trust me, the oddsmakers are looking at the "key games", not the smaller schools, so soft action can produce big winners.
STRIKE POINT SPORTS - We don’t get hooked on the power conferences. At Strike Point Sports, we really hone in to find the best lines and selective match-ups from lesser leagues where the value lies. Be open to new teams and consider them just as potentially profitable as a Top 25 team or a major conference game. Money is money at the end of the day, and it doesn't matter who helps you earn more of it.
ARUN SHIVA (INDIAN COWBOY) - We want to focus and share one main theory that we use in handicapping college basketball. It is called the "active underdog over theory". The active underdog theory is essentially taking an underdog that you believe will be an active underdog (either due to revenge against a team from an earlier season loss, coming off a double-digit loss, losing outright to a team they were heavily favored against, etc.) and taking the 'over' with this team. So, you expect a team that is looking to exceed expectations over the line currently constructed for them. So anytime that you think a team that is an underdog is going to exceed expectations against a team, then take the 'over'. This is because if the underdog is highly motivated, as we discussed for revenge, coming off a double-digit loss, or losing outright to a team they were favored straight up against, then certainly they will be motivated to exceed the amount of points they are expected to score in their next game.
JASON SHARPE - The goal is to find games where you strongly disagree with the final score. Most power rating handicappers will see a game that Western Michigan loses by 14 points to USC when they were a 14-point underdog and decide because the final score matched the point spread that there's no reason to move the power rating for WMU. If you do the work and notice that WMU lost its best player for most of the game due to foul trouble, or that WMU led the entire game before losing the lead late, then you are most likely onto something good. The idea is to try and find a legitimate reason to strongly disagree with what the final score was. If you felt WMU should have lost by only five points, instead of the 14 points they did lose by, then you are going to obviously move up your WMU power rating some. In the end, this will give you a much better team power rating of these lesser-known teams than the linesmakers, and you will be betting with a big edge overall.
TONY GEORGE - Focusing on smaller postseason tournaments could be a worthwhile strategy. While the NCAA Tournament gets the lion’s share of attention, I would strongly urge bettors to try betting the NIT and CBI tournaments. These offer a huge opportunity in terms of betting action, and many times the betting markets almost completely ignore them and you can find some very soft lines. The main difference is home and road teams come into play in these tourneys. Higher-seeded teams get to play at home, and that is a monster advantage. Bear in mind, teams from small conferences look at these games as their Super Bowl, and a lot of them are just happy to make the postseason as opposed to the major conference teams that would rather be in the NCAA Tournament.
AMAL SHAH - When it comes to home field, home court or home ice advantage, no sport has a bigger edge than college basketball. Of the six major sports in the United States, college basketball provides the bettor with a distinct advantage over the visiting team. There are a variety of reasons for this. The biggest being the crowd and the impact they have on the game. The energy a home crowd provides is undeniable, but beyond that you see the influence in the way referees officiate the game and how they call the game. Teams thrive off an electric dunk or block that ignites the team, the crowd, and the arena. Bettors have an opportunity to take advantage of this in situations where games are considered a toss-up or see the home team as a short favorite of 1-3 points.
SCOTT SPREITZER - One of my favorite early-season betting tips in college basketball involves returning starters. Often, you'll get perceived mismatches in November college basketball. But you can give yourself an advantage by knowing the rosters. It takes a little work, and you may want to start in October, but make a list of teams returning 4 or 5 starters, including the previous season's starting point-guard, and those who lost more than 3 starters, including having to break-in a new starting point-guard. You may find that you don't automatically play on the team with the returning players, but by staying away from early season depleted rosters when facing veteran teams will save your bankroll and keep you in the game into conference season.
VERNON CROY - There are so many college basketball games every week, so find a few smaller non-featured games and handicap them. You will find great value in the smaller conferences where the books do not generally keep tight lines. The featured games usually have very tight lines because the books expect the most action on those games. So, unless you have endless hours to handicap the featured games, leave them to the professional handicapper to do the work for you.
AUGUST YOUNG - When betting college basketball, I would advise to look out for the smaller market games with lower betting limits. Bookmakers set low limits for a reason, and it’s directly related to their confidence in the numbers they are hanging. Smaller market games don’t get much public attention, and therefore the line is hugely shaped by sharp action - which you can use to your advantage if you understand the value of a half-point and key numbers. Totals are even softer than the spread and can be exploited beautifully. Often the sharpest bettors will set up these markets one way, to come back even bigger on the other side as limits increase towards tip-off.
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