Making a Case for Betting Good College Hoops Teams

Last week I wrote an article about an easy method to handicapping the National Basketball Association. It is so easy, you don’t even have to be smarter than a fifth grader to do it (I have to give one of my favorite TV shows a free plug in a round about way). Speaking of the Jeff Foxworthy-hosted show on Fox, Friday’s at 8:00, my favorite question I have seen a contestant answer incorrectly was “What ocean is named after India”? Not quite as easy of question as “What state is named after the Mississippi River, but very close. The poor guy, I believe he was an accountant from Toledo, had used up all of his “lifelines” of help so he was stuck coming up with the answer himself. After a considerable amount of thinking coupled with stammering, he responded with “the Bay of Bombay”. How would you like that guy doing your taxes?

Regarding the NBA handicapping article, I had some readers question me if this simplistic method I wrote about was also good for handicapping college basketball games. If you didn’t see the article, the basic premise was to place your bets on teams with winning straight-up records as compared to losing teams. There was a distinct correlation of cashing tickets by sticking to teams with the better straight-up record and staying away from the bottom dwellers.

In college hoops, with having over 200 regularly lined-teams playing 25 to 40 games a season, I went about looking at this methodology a little differently than how I did it for the NBA with its 30 teams. I wanted to keep it very basic but needed to keep the qualifying data set somewhat small.

I felt a good way to reduce risk would be to take a look at teams who have covered the point spread at a good rate over each of the past four years and see if I can uncover any gems that will help me win. While I do believe in longer-term views as for uncovering trends and tendencies, I do also believe that each sport evolves and changes from year to year.

I went to the StatFox website where they have the best collection and history of college basketball statistics that I have ever seen available on the Internet. If you have never been to the StatFox website and you love statistics, you will be making this site a regular stop when you see what’s available. And, even more importantly, the numbers are sortable. They don’t just put up the top 25 or the top fifty in a category, they have all lined teams with virtually any statistic you would want to follow. Statfox.com is one of the best tools any handicapper can utilize no matter what sport they are handicapping. And the greatest thing about it, the StatFox site is entirely free!

I went to the team report page and sorted the teams by their ATS winning percentage. I eliminated teams that did not play a full season of lined games, ones with a point spread every week. You often have a Texas State or Alcorn State that plays just a few lined games against large non-conference schools every year. There is no point in having their statistics skew the results.

I then looked at teams that covered the point spread at least 60% of the time for the entire season. I did this for the past four years. There were a total of 134 teams that qualified at that rate. The number each year was very constant, between 30 and 36 each year. In 2004-05, of the 34 teams on the 60% list, 25 had winning records and nine had a season below .500, then a 28-6 mark in 2005-06 of over .500 teams, and followed by a 30-6 tally for the 2006-07 season. Last year there was a drop-off to only 30 teams total that had an ATS record of 60% or better. Of those 30teams, 23 had winning records. The total for all four years was 28 teams out of 134, just 20.9%, had losing records but still covered 60% or better of their games against the number.
We have talked about betting on teams that win straight-up at a good rate. How about finding teams to bet against? Let’s go back four seasons and see what we can find.

I looked at teams that did not cover at least 40% of their games for the season. Over the four years analyzed, 122 teams in total did not reach our Mendoza line. Of those 122 money-burning teams, only 26 of them had winning records for the season, a paltry 17.6%. Just like in betting on teams with winning records can help you be profitable in your wagering endeavors, betting against teams that have below .500 records can put money in your pocket, also.

Out of curiosity, I took another way to look at this concept. How do very high percentage winning teams do against the point spread? I trekked back to the StatFox team report page, sorted the teams by straight-up winning percentage each of the past four years. I looked at teams that won 75% or better of their games.

Would you believe that 85% of these high-quality teams had .500 or better ATS records? I was surprised the number would be that high. Combined over the four-year span, there were 107 teams that won 75% of their games. Again, these are only regularly-lined teams. Last year there were 27 qualifying squads with only 4 losing ATS marks. In the 2006-07 campaign, not one out of 24 teams had a losing ATS record and only one, Memphis, had a .500 mark covering the number. Three seasons ago it was 6 teams with a below .500 ATS out of 26 at 75% or better. And in 2005-06 saw 28 high-quality teams and just 6 with losing ATS tallies.

Granted, nobody can see in the future to know with 100% accuracy what teams are going to win 75%+ of their games, or for that matter, even have a winning or losing year. However, at this time of the season you should have a very good idea of teams with that potential.

In trying to come up with things that could sink this generalized method of handicapping, my first thought was how do “public teams” do ATS. These are teams with a strong national following, sterling reputation, and who are usually high-quality teams winning year after year. Last year I looked at what I consider the top five “public teams”: North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, UCLA, and Kentucky.

I could find nothing over the past several years that uncovered a high degree of point spread profits betting against them. Last year all five teams had winning ATS scores combining for a 98-70 mark, 58.3%. In fact, I unearthed more profitable spots than negative ones, such as North Carolina since 2000 is 55-24, 69.6 %, as a home double-digit favorite below 30 points.

Well, need to run. My favorite television show is starting. Tonight’s contestant is a dentist from Denver. I want to see how he does in Fifth Grade American History.

Jim Kruger of Vegas Sports Authority is frequent contributor.