RPI – an acronym that gets thrown around a lot in the world of college basketball. Like a lot of things in sports, though, a lot of people talk about it without really understanding what it is, why it matters, the faults it has, and how it can be useful by (more…)

For college basketball bettors there’s something to consider when it comes to home court advantage. Have you ever watched a Duke NCAA basketball game? Or a game of the Maryland Terps? Maybe the Kansas Jayhawks? If you have attended one of these teams’ arenas, you know what I’m talking about. From loud chants to (more…)

Upsets are a big part of college basketball – one of the things that makes the sport so great. Teams at the top of the rankings can look so talented and potent that they are seemingly unbeatable, but then they can fall to a totally unexpected foe. Predicting those upsets can (more…)

We see it season after college basket season. A NCAA hoop team comes out of the gate blazing then goes into a freefall. In 2010 Syracuse started the season 18-0 and were one of the last undefeated teams standing. A loss to Pitt was followed by one to Villanova, and their confidence was (more…)

Near the end of January in 2011 the Big Ten in college basketball gave us a very exciting and very educational matchup between Purdue and Ohio State. Purdue, ranked 12th in the country at the time, was a talented basketball team who was proving they were a force in the national picture. Ohio (more…)

Conference play starts right away in college basketball, and will take us right into the NCAA tournament. There are some key differences that sports bettors need to understand and adapt to between non-conference play and conference play if they want to have a profitable winter. Here are seven ways that college basketball (more…)

When most college basketball bettors – certainly casual ones – are looking at the games on offer on a given day looking for the most attractive they are drawn to the ones with the biggest names involved. Games between ranked teams always draw the most money, followed by those with one (more…)

Betting on college basketball is great for a whole lot of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is how varied it can be – every day is different. Much more than any of the other major sports college basketball is so varied. That’s what happens when you have more than 300 (more…)

Turnover percentage and defense field goal percentage are keys in college basketball point spread betting. Turn on SportsCenter on any given night during the NCAA college basketball season, and you will most likely find a buzzer-beating three or a monster dunk in the day’s Top-10 plays. On the other hand you (more…)

Because there are so many NCAA basketball teams playing in so many different leagues college basketball can be really intimidating for a lot of bettors. To combat that problem a lot of public bettors rely heavily on public and media perception of teams – basing their opinions on what they read and (more…)

The closer the calendar gets to March the more intense the Bubble Watch can be in college basketball. As the regular NCAA basketball season nears the end there are several teams out there that are playing for their tournament lives. There are inevitably more teams that are worthy of playing in (more…)

We are far enough into the college basketball season that some real surprises have started to emerge. Every year there are a couple of teams that weren’t even ranked in the preseason polls – and perhaps didn’t even get votes in the poll – that vault into the rankings or even (more…)

Each year a few college basketball teams get a very nice gift right before Christmas. That’s when the academic term ends, so it’s also when basketball players who weren’t eligible in the first semester can join the team and start playing. There are usually a few intriguing, valuable players that get (more…)

In NCAA basektball, Gonzaga is looking mortal these days, but for many years they were so much better than every basketball team in their conference that it just wasn’t fair. Before Butler made history by going all the way to the championship game in 2010 they have rolled to a perfect (more…)

In college basketsball, the sports media loves to overreact to situations. It seems like it is their favorite thing to do. A NCAA hoop team wins a couple of games in a row in impressive fashion and they have already been awarded the title. Lose a couple and they might as (more…)

When February rolls around there is still a lot of college basketball left to play and bet on before the postseason starts. For dozens of NCAA teams, though, all they are doing is putting in time. Their records are lousy, there are no post-season prospects, and it’s probably getting harder and harder (more…)

There are so many college basketball teams and conferences out there that we can’t possibly keep track of them all. Some NCAA conferences are so obscure that the only time we hear about them each year is when the winner of the conference loses to a number one seed by 40. (more…)

A tricky part about gambling on college basketball conference games is the rematch. Usually in a NCAA conference two teams will play each other twice, both home and away. Sometimes this can fool the new bettor into simply looking at the last matchup between the two teams when making their decision on (more…)

One of the best things about handicapping sports and especially college basketball, is that there is always more to learn and different ways to think about things. Unless you are getting every game right you can always do better – pick more winners and win more money. there are a lot of (more…)

When a lot of people talk about college basketball – especially outside of the handful of elite, top level programs – they talk a lot about the significance of seniors in the lineup. The theory is that seniors are more experienced, they provide better leadership, and teams are generally better when (more…)

With the college basketball season about to start a lot of sports bettors are thinking about season long props – like who will win the national championship. Originally, my plan was to write an article about what to do and what not to do when it comes to making prop bets. To (more…)

There are a lot of problems with polls – especially in college football. In college basketball, though, the polls are an under-appreciated means of drawing insights about teams and leagues. You aren’t going to learn a lot from just looking at the poll at face value, but some simple analysis of (more…)

The general betting public for college basketball has plenty of biases – favorites and the over, for example. Oddsmakers are fully aware of those biases, and they adjust the lines accordingly to maximize their chances at profit. That means that successful bettors are also aware of those biases, and they factor (more…)

Home court advantage isn’t really a difficult concept in basketball. Teams are more comfortable when they play at home in front of their home crowd and sleep in their own beds, so they play better at home than they do on the road in most cases. Everyone understands that. When it (more…)

March is obviously all about the  tournament when it comes to college basketball. Smart bettors know, though, that March is also when the coaching carousel starts to spin at full force. In most cases it’s hard to get too excited about coaching changes when they happen – the team needed to (more…)

Astute college basketball bettors know that they can gain a big edge over the general public by paying attention to the first couple of weeks of college basketball practice in October. Midnight Madness draws some attention in some schools, but after that most bettors are too distracted by the NFL, college (more…)

Non-conference college basketball is great for one big reason – it means we are closer to conference play and tournament season, and both of those are brilliant. Betting on the non-conference season can be fruitful for bettors. If those sports bettors aren’t careful, though, the non-conference schedule is littered with traps (more…)

At the end of every college basketball regular season each conference crowns a champion. For some teams those regular season titles are extremely important and highly motivating. For others, though, it is not a particularly significant motivating factor. Bettors who are able to tell the difference between teams that will elevate (more…)

Near the end of the college basketball regular season in hundreds of gyms across the country one of the great traditions in all of sports happens – Seniors’ Night. After a college player has played four or five years with a program and given their heart and soul to it Seniors’ (more…)

At the start of the college basketball season many teams choose to play an exhibition game or two in an attempt to get ready for their season. These are typically against hopelessly outmatched opponents – often from as low as Division III. If elite teams do play Division I-A opponents then (more…)

When the college basketball calendar shifts from non-conference play into the conference schedule successful bettors are always on the lookout for teams that could perform in a way that could surprise unprepared bettors. That means that they are looking for basketball teams that are poised to be either notably better or (more…)

The schedule for college basketball teams is typically straight forward. Teams start out by playing non-conference games and maybe throw in a preseason tournament. Around Christmas time the non-conference schedule ends and  college basketball teams head into conference play right up to conference tournament time in late February or early March. Every (more…)

In a perfect world every college basketball team would quietly but steadily improve throughout the season, and would be ready to perform at their peak by the middle of March. Of course, things rarely work out that smoothly. Quite often a team will start to slide just when they could be (more…)

The profile of the Big Ten – ACC Challenge seems to grow each year. It’s an event that is purely made for TV, but with passing time there have been some college basketball rivalries built up, and teams and coaches seem to be more and more invested in winning the challenge (more…)

There are some good arguments that can be made for betting on college basketball in November – the first month of the season. There are some good arguments to be made for not betting on the sport at that time as well. So, that’s we’re going to do – we’ll make (more…)

There are good reasons to bet on college basketball in the first month of the season in November, and good reasons not to bet on it then. In another article we looked at five reasons why you would want to bet on these games. Here I want to look at the (more…)

College basketball is a great game to bet on. There are an incredible number of games to choose from, information is plentiful and easy to find, and lines – particularly early in the season – are considerably softer than in major pro sports. College basketball doesn’t get nearly as much attention (more…)

Early in the college basketball season a lot of bettors won’t be familiar with what to expect from most teams because they haven’t seen them play or read much about them. That means that many of those sports bettors will rely heavily on the preseason and early season rankings to judge (more…)

A lot of college basketball handicappers tend to think of home court advantage as being relatively static – it will be basically be the same from game to game in the same building. That’s not always the case. There are several different circumstances in which even the most supportive and vocal (more…)

Every college basketball season we see a couple of top five teams get absolutely crushed in a game. I’m not talking about losing games they should have won, or getting beaten by a few points. I’m talking about an epic beatdown – a 20 or 30 point margin in a game (more…)

In February of 2012 in college basketball the New Mexico Lobos were red hot and were quickly becoming regarded as one of the mid-majors that could make some real noise in the NCAA tournament. They had won seven in a row capped by consecutive decisive wins over fellow Mountain West powers (more…)

For many college basketball bettors – especially the more casual ones – the big preseason tournaments mark the first time that they pay attention to the sport. Preseason tournaments like the Maui Invitational or the Old Spice Classic can offer big name showdowns early in the season when most other games (more…)

Most college basketball bettors probably know that there is good value to be had in betting on the mid-major conferences. Most bettors probably don’t spend nearly as much time betting on those conferences as they do on the big ones, though. It makes sense – there are a huge number of (more…)