College Hoops Futures Bets

In last week’s college basketball article, I looked at the past five years of Final Four teams and their offensive and defensive efficiency ratings as well as the differential between the two. Using the minimum numbers for each category that occurred over the past five seasons, I made a list of teams who achieved as high or higher number in all three areas. My list of teams numbered sixteen last week.

After using current data, five teams fell out of my qualifying Final Four list and one new one emerged to reduce this week’s slate to 12 teams. Three teams fell out because their defensive efficiency number worsened above the minimum, Missouri, Utah, and Georgetown. Illinois and Kentucky’s offensive efficiency numbers were reduced below our required minimum. Any of these teams can show up on the list again. This week’s list is as follows ranked by the best margin between offensive and defensive efficiency:

1. Duke
2. North Carolina
3. Pittsburgh
4. Connecticut
5. Gonzaga
6. West Virginia
7. Arizona State
8. Wake Forest
9. Washington
10. Butler
11. Xavier
12. Villanova

I like to look for inside-outside scoring capabilities on a team. A team cannot rely too much on any one player for their points. Balance is key. Having at least two good shooters from three-point range is a strong benefit when playing against a zone. Sure, players like Davidson’s Stephen Curry are special and many times can carry a team on their shoulders. However, it is very difficult for one player to be able to do that for the five NCAA Tournament wins it takes to become national champion.

The past five years has seen two number-one seeds playing in the championship game three times with the other two years having #2 versus #3 seeds to win it all. Out of the 20 Final Four teams, every squad has been no lower than a #3 seed except for two #4’s, one #5, and a rogue #11, George Mason in 2005-06.

In looking at wagering on a futures bet to win it all, I didn’t want to get worse than 10 to 1 odds so that eliminated a number of my teams. Let’s examine some of the ones I considered.Villanova’s 6-8 forward Sr. Dante Cunningham is having a breakout season leading the Wildcats in scoring, rebounding, steals, and blocks. However, after improving last season, Jr. Scottie Reynolds has digressed in shooting this year behind the arc while falling to a field goal percentage of 39.0%. Nova is only 2-4 this season against teams in the top 50 RPI. The Wildcats should fall from my list of top Final Four candidates soon.

West Virginia plays tremendous defense but has had difficulties closing games out. While 6-7 Jr. Da’Sean Butler is an all-Big East caliber player, the Mountaineers have two freshmen in their top 5 minute earners with one of those being their point guard, Truck Bryant. They also have the lowest offensive effective field goal percentage of our 12 teams and along with Washington, are the only team to be below 50% in that category.

Xavier played an exceptional non-conference schedule this year helping prepare them for the Atlantic 10 conference race. They have beaten the likes of Missouri, Memphis, and LSU. Their two losses this season were against fellow elite teams on our list, Duke and Butler. Playing their worst game of the year, the Musketeers were down by 31 points at halftime to Duke before losing by 18. The next game was against Butler where Xavier turned the ball over 17 times and put the Bulldogs at the free-throw line for 33 attempts where Butler shot 78.8%. The bright side was they held Butler to just 35.1% shooting.The Musketeers are a well balanced team with three players scoring in double-digits. Any one of five players can go off for 20. A good inside-outside combo in F Derrick Brown and G C.J. Anderson, a gritty competitor. The team shoots the ball well aided by a lot of back screens, play very good defense, and have the best rate in the country at getting to the charity stripe. Their downside is they have the worst turnover rate of our 12 squads, losing the rock on 22.1% of their possessions, 247th in the country. Xavier doesn’t get the national publicity they deserve. They normally play a top 50 non-conference schedule and have had very good post-season success. The Musketeers have gone to three straight NCAA tournaments and seven in the last eight years. They made the Elite Eight last season before losing to UCLA in the West regional final and are one of only nine programs to make multiple appearances in the final eight in the last five years. Xavier is a projected #4 seed by collegerpi.com. At 75 to 1 current odds, that is a long-shot wager I am going to take. I am not saying the Musketeers are going to win it all, but this is a wager that has value to me.

While Butler has beaten Xavier and UAB with their only loss coming at Ohio State by 3 points, I cannot take a flyer on the Bulldogs to capture the college crown as they are ranked 340th out of 344 Division 1 schools in experience. Butler has two freshmen and two sophomores starting.

The University of Washington is playing the best defense they have for the past six seasons, including when they made the Sweet 16 in 2006 led by Brandon Roy where they lost in overtime to UConn. The Huskies don’t make many three’s ranking in the bottom ten nationally in percentage of points from behind the arc. Washington didn’t play a very tough non-con slate losing to Kansas and Florida in a November tournament in Kansas City. The only other Top 50 school they played was a win at home over Oklahoma State. U-Dub is the second worst shooting team and they have the worst defensive effective field goal percentage out of our elite dozen. This past weekend on the road they beat another of our group, Arizona State, after they had dropped a game to Arizona two nights earlier. The Huskies are led by Frosh sparkplug PG Isaiah Thomas and the physical 6-7 Sr Jon Brockman. Even though the Pac-10 is down this year and I don’t like the UW coach very much plus I have my doubts on the Huskies’ true defensive capabilities, at odds of 100 to 1 to becoming the champions, I am going to skip taking the wife out to dinner one night this week and go drop a Benjamin on a Washington futures bet.

After all, who thought the Arizona Cardinals would be within three minutes of winning the Super Bowl?I listed the odds for the teams on my list of winning the championship courtesy of Sportsbook.com. Wake Forest was 14 to 1. At that price I put money on Wake to end up #1. Wake plays at a frenetic pace, seventh fastest in D-1. The Deamon Deacons play superb defense, #5 in defensive efficiency. Even though they have exceptional size, they cover the perimeter like a blanket ranking third in D-1 in defensive 3-point field goal percentage. They have beaten two teams on my current list, North Carolina and Duke, and two others that are close to being on the list, BYU and Clemson. They are also exceptional in a stat I like to look at, defensive assist-to-field goal ratio. Wake gets to march to the line frequently ranking 20th in their percentage free throw attempts to field goal attempts, 45.4. Collegerpi.com has Wake as one of their current #1 seeds.

I mentioned that Villanova is a team that will probably slide off my list of potential FF teams, and obviously there are some who could possibly move on to the list. Purdue is projected as a #4 seed and just needs to get and stay as healthy as possible while adding one more point to their OE. Rick Pitino’s Louisville is doing their normal second half of the season surge and only need to improve their OE two points to qualify for our list. While Oklahoma is listed as one of the four #1 seeds by collegerpi.com, they have to improve their defensive efficiency by more than 2 points to make my potential Final Four list.

Sure, this is just the first week of February. It is never too early to look at futures bets. It is similar to playing the lottery, but the people who had Celtics futures tickets last year aren’t complaining.

Jim Kruger of Vegas Sports Authority drops by to share his wisdom.