In the NCAA Tournament every win counts, and winning is ultimately all that matters. Sometimes, though, the wins that teams get are particularly ugly. In the first round in particular you’ll often see a highly seeded team play very poorly but still come out on top because of a massive skill (more…)

The NCAA Tournament is an interesting challenge for bettors. For the first four days of the tournament there is a constant, almost overwhelming stream of games to watch and handicap. Then there is silence. From the end of the second round on Sunday night to the start of the Sweet 16 (more…)

I love the NIT. For basketball betting, that is. As a tournament or a spectator event it’s pretty much a waste of time these days. For people who are willing to get past that and handicap it, though, it’s another great source for profits in March. Here are five great reasons (more…)

Leading up to the NCAA tournament all of the talk is about seeds – which teams will be seeded where, and what that means for them. In some ways the intense discussion is important for handicappers to keep in mind, but in other ways it is nothing more than a distraction. (more…)

Conference basketball tournaments have the real potential to cause handicappers one more headache as they can easily add more wrinkles to the already daunting challenge of handicapping the NCAA Tournament. There are basically three things a college basketball team can do at their conference tournament. If they do pretty much what was (more…)

There is an almost endless list of factors sports bettors can consider when handicapping the NCAA tournament. Some factors obviously matter more than others. One that I think is significant and often overlooked – or at least not looked at in as many ways as it should be – is the location of (more…)

The NCAA Tournament is the best time of year for college basketball bettors, and quite possibly for all sports bettors. If you aren’t careful, though, it can also be a very expensive time of year. The lines are tighter than they usually are in college basketball, and heavy public betting action (more…)

Conference strength is a challenging concept for college basketball handicappers. When it comes to the postseason there is a lot we can learn from conference strength, but there are a lot of ways that it can lead us astray as well. As with most things, the best way to deal with (more…)

The NCAA Tournament is all about the Cinderella teams – the basketball teams that seemingly defy all odds to pull off an upset or two against higher ranked college teams. For handicappers these Cinderella teams can create serious headaches. Now that they have won you have to figure out if they are capable (more…)

When NCAA Tournament time rolls around there is an overwhelming number of college basketball teams to analyze, and not much time to do it between when the bracket is set and when the games are played. In order to have the time to look closely at all of the good teams (more…)

March Madness. Arguably the biggest, best, most fun to watch sporting event of the year. With the expansion to 68 college basketball teams, we will get to see even more games. And with the TV expansion we will literally get to watch all games. The NCAA added TBS, TNT, and truTV (more…)

Handicapping the NCAA Tournament is, in a lot of ways, at least theoretically the ultimate dream for bettors. You know teams will be playing at full intensity, and the neutral site eliminates at least some of the home court issues, so it’s a more pure form of handicapping than a lot (more…)

For a lot of people March is all about filling in a basketball bracket that is good enough to win your pool. The money is usually pretty good when you do that, but it’s nothing compared to the pride and bragging rights that come with a win. There is a lot (more…)

Over half of the basketball teams in the NCAA Tournament field, and a large majority of the major conference teams, come into the tournament after having lost their last game. Some of those teams not only lost their last game, but they were humiliated – totally schooled. Those college hoop teams (more…)

There are a lot of different ways a team can win the NCAA Tournament. Different winners have had stars at different positions, different strengths and weaknesses, and have accomplished different things during the regular season. There are some things, though, that virtually all champions have in common – traits that help (more…)

Conference tournaments are a unique handicapping challenge in college basketball. They are games like any other, yet there are things that make them different as well – a compact schedule, high pressure, and so on. As a foundation you need to handicap these games just like you would any other game. (more…)

Betting on conference tournaments in college basketball is something I always look forward to – it’s like an appetizer for the glorious main course that is the NCAA tournament. It’s also a good time to find some nice value and pad the bankroll for the the big show that’s about to (more…)

For most of the 100 college basketball teams that are playing in the NCAA Tournament and the NIT it is a very exciting time. They have worked hard all season, have had some decent results, and have been rewarded for their work with a spot in the postseason and a chance (more…)

Betting on the championship game of the NCAA Tournament is different than betting on any other college basketball game played throughout the year. In some ways it’s just another basketball game, but it is really so much more than that. Players treat it differently, bettors treat it differently, and so successful (more…)

College basketball mostly comes to an end in March, but not before a whole lot of games are played. There is the NCAA Tournament – which every sports fan in the country pays attention to. Then there is the NIT, which used to be great and is now largely ignored by (more…)

There is nothing I love more than the NCAA Tournament. It’s perfect in almost every way. One of the many ways it shines is in the opportunities it provides for college basketball handicappers. Because of the huge amount of public attention on the tournament there is a massive amount of value (more…)

It seems as if there are more and more March Madness bracketology articles every year. Experts – some legitimate and some dubious – try to predict what the NCAA tournament bracket is going to look like. That means that they will predict who will get in, who will be out, and what (more…)

When it comes to handicapping the NCAA Tournament experience is a factor that gets discussed as much or more than any other. Whether it relates to tournament experience or overall college basketball experience – from the players or the coaches – it is a factor that gets much discussed, and which (more…)

People love to make futures bets, including NCAA Tournament futures.. Sportsbooks also love to offer them for one big reason – they are very profitable. In a lot of cases betting seriously on futures bets is not something that serious bettors will pay a lot of attention to. You have to (more…)

Betting on futures in the NCAA Tournament – whether on who is going to win it all, or which teams will win their regions and progress to the Final Four – is one of the most fun parts of betting on March Madness. For the smart college basketball bettor, it can (more…)

One of the interesting aspects of the NCAA Tournament from a betting perspective is how the feel of games can change throughout the day – especially on the first weekend of action. Basketball games on those days start early in the morning and go well into the night. It can feel (more…)

There are some things sports bettors hear every year when the NCAA Tournament rolls around – factors that will have a big impact on the outcome of the basketball tournament. Some of those really are significant. Many, though, sound a whole lot more important than they really are. Smart bettors are able to (more…)

Prop betting in the NCAA Tournament can be both fun and profitable. As the options expand each year and books get more creative in order to stand out there are more and more opportunities out there to consider. Some prop bets make great sense, and others really don’t. In order to (more…)

Every year during conference championship week there are a few NCAA tournament winners who are real head scratchers. These are the low seeded teams that had plodded through the regular season that somehow manage to get hot at just the right time to claim their conference title and secure an NCAA (more…)

In most cases in college basketball you would expect a team that has a significant advantage in skill and experience to win. If you have watched the NCAA Tournament for any amount of time, though, then you know that the talented team doesn’t always win. Every year we see teams win (more…)

The championship game in the NCAA tournament differs in small but significant ways from the Final Four, and form all the other games that have come before it. Basketball bettors who can recognize those differences are better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that they can create. Here are five (more…)

Almost every year in college basketball it seems like we have at least one unlikely winner of a major NCAA conference tournament. A team will come into their tournament seeded well down the list. They’ll have all sorts of issues that led them to underachieve and disappoint during the season. They’ll (more…)

The Final Four is almost like an entirely new tournament within the NCAA Tournament. The college basketball teams that get there are immensely talented, and they have had the ideal combination of skill, form, and luck to overcome their obstacles and win four high pressure games. For college basketball handicappers, some (more…)

There are few things I like more in sports than sitting down in the evening of the Sunday before the NCAA Tournament to see the bracket as it is introduced. Selection Sunday is all about seeing where your college basketball team winds up, which teams get a good draw, which teams (more…)

There is nothing more fun to watch in the NCAA tournament than a Cinderella team – a squad that far exceeds the expectations based on their background and their seeding. For bettors these teams can be fun for another reason – they can be extremely profitable. Teams that make surprising tournament (more…)

In recent years we have seen the NCAA Tournament expand from 64 basketball teams to 65, and now to 68. There was talk when it went to 68 that it might go to 96, but thankfully that terrible idea was avoided. With the expansion of the tournament we are now faced (more…)

The NCAA Tournament is tough to handicap for all sorts of reasons. One of the biggest of those reasons is that college basketball teams have such different experiences in the regular season that it can be hard to really get a sense of how they stack up against each other. A team (more…)