NCAA Basketball Betting on First Tournament Round

Written March 17, 2009 by Evan Altemus

dont-bet-dogs-in-ncaa-tournament Evan Altemus is a handicapper who believes that you have to look at the past in order to predict the future. It has worked out well for him when making his NCAA basketball picks in the past, so he decided to write a little article on doing college basketball betting on first round tournament games for our readers to pick up a few tips. If you are going to bet the games, take a look at Sports Interaction where you can deposit using your checking account.

One surprising trend the Evan found when looking at last year’s first round games is that favorites were 21-10 ATS (one game was a pick em) and even the top two seeds in each bracket went 5-3 ATS. Evan thinks that the general public tries to look for upsets and thus falls in love with underdogs during the first round, which means expert handicappers can find value in favorites.

It seems that the media and general public all want to find which team is going to be this year’s Davidson or George Mason. There is so much talk about these Cinderella teams that the public doesn’t look to take #3 through #7 seeds but looks to fade them. With the college basketball odds makers realizing the trend of the general public they tend to not have the favorites laying as many points as they should be. Last year Oklahoma, Butler, Marquette, Xavier, Louisville, Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Pitt were all teams pundits were saying could be upset, but instead all of them went out and won in dominant fashion and picked up the cash for backers.

There were 19 total matchups in the first round involving point spreads on teams seeded #3 through #7. The favorites in those game picked up the cash 14 times while losing just five. The teams that covered all won outright, so if you do fall in love with a dog here the money line might be the better play. One of the teams to pull off the upset was Kansas State who had Michael Beasley and Bill Walker, so could that team even really have been considered a long shot?

The bottom line is that if you are going to do NCAA tournament betting on the first round games then the value will be looking at favorites not laying enough points. The public is on the underdogs so you won’t find many odds makers errors on that side of the action. It might not be an exciting way to wager on the tournament, but it can be a profitable one if you are willing to ride the favorites all the way to the bank. Another way to pick up some extra money is the $500 bonus given when you deposit $500 at BetUS and tell them BetFirms sent you!

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