The NCAA tournament has morphed into a national sports betting holiday.  So why is conference tournament week a superior wagering opportunity?

1. The NCAA tournament has 64 games, including the play-in, over a 3-week span.  This week there are 127 games from Tuesday through Sunday involving teams that are in the main college betting rotation used by Vegas and offshore sportsbooks.  That vast selection, combined with the unique nature of daily tournament basketball play, makes the conference tourneys a superior wagering opportunity.  As a result, along with our clients we have a very good track record in the conference tourneys.

2. Every game is a rematch, and some teams have already played twice.  While sometimes teams change drastically over the course of a season (if Georgetown gets hot and plays UConn you can all but throw early January Hoya win up in Storrs out the window), in many instances understanding what happened in the previous games is meaningful.  What happened in those games?  If a team has shown an edge previously is it due to legitimate matchup advantages, or did they hit a bunch of contested 3’s and get favorable officiating against a banged up opponent?  You need to know how the previous meetings played out.

3. After the first round, every game has at least 1 team, and it’s usually both teams, playing without rest.  That makes fatigue and energy levels critically important.  So nagging injuries, player rotation,  and depth are enormously important.  If you don’t study every box score and game story carefully this week, and understand how those box scores relate to the teams usual substitution patterns, you’re shortchanging yourself.

4. If a team has already (cliche alert) punched their ticket to “The Big Dance”,  how important is this game to them? Certain conference tournaments are enormously important to the teams involved, and bragging rights are particularly on the line in the Big East and the ACC.   But in other conferences (Pac Ten, anyone?) there’s not nearly the fervor for a conference tourney title.  Would they like to win? Sure.  But would a coach really mind not having to put his team through the wringer in order to win this week’s tourney when the one that starts next week is more important to him? After all, coaches don’t get lucrative new jobs as a result of conference tourney runs, but burst into the Sweet 16 and the big money follows.

5. Obviously to properly benefit from some fine opportunities this week there has to be some serious work involved.   We’ve been doing that work all year long and will be ingesting tons of box scores and game stories this week in an effort to get an edge.  Our documented success over the years in the conference tournaments and the NCAA’s proves that the hard work over the course of a long season pays off this time of year.   If you purchase our March Madness selection package we’ll give you the rest of the NBA regular season for free.  You end up paying just a bit more than 7 bucks a day to take advantage of our hard work, experience, and proven basketball success.  Call 1-770-649-1078 for more information or to sign up.

Hopefully something here helps you out. Good luck with the conference tourneys this week.

Heading into the major conference tournaments, let’s take a look at 5 teams led by very good coaches, who for whatever reason have significantly underperformed market expectations, in the process bludgeoning bettors by losing game after game against the pointspread.

Notice that Ernie Kent and Pat Knight aren’t on this list, as this list is made up of guys who are legitimately good coaches. These mentors are well-regarded in the basketball world, and deservedly so, but for various reasons their underachieving teams combine for a money-burning 41-80-3 (33.8%) against the spread.

1. John Thompson III, Georgetown, 8-16-1 Against The Spread (ATS): A young team that got off to a surprising start, the Hoyas are 8-16-1 against the spread, and are 3-14-1 most recently after starting 5-2 against the number.  Last week the Hoyas lost outright at St. John’s after leading 45-30 with less than 11 minutes, the Hoyas 7th straight up loss as a favorite.   Georgetown’s fast start, with wins over Memphis and UConn, masked the youth, which was exposed in a deep, experienced league.

2. Scott Drew, Baylor, 7-15 ATS.  Drew took over a decimated Baylor program in 2003 and did a phenomenal job building things from scratch, peaking with a NCAA bid last March.  But things have been different this year, and the Bears have lost 8 times when favored. BU’s defense, not a strength last year, continues to struggle, and the offense, which masked the defensive weaknesses last year, hasn’t kept up.  Drew has even been reduced to the “take their names of their jerseys” gimmick in an effort to get his team to commit to defense and play together.

3. Mike Brey, Notre Dame, 9-16 ATS.  The Irish have lost outright 5 times as a favorite.   Brey’s got a lot of excuses, mostly centering around the tough schedule, travel, TV games, etc. But the pointspread is the great equalizer, and the Irish are not meeting marketplace expectations.  Notre Dame’s defense has been the main problem, and for much of the season the Irish had the worst defensive efficiency of any team in the Top 100.

4. Mark Fox, Nevada, 10-16-1 ATS.  Fox has done fantastic work in recent years, but expectations as hammered out by the marketplace are not being met in Reno this season. Nevada has dropped 5 games when favored, and have been maddeningly inconsistent.  Last week the Wolf Pack followed up a humiliating loss to WAC basement dweller Fresno State with a big win over league leader Utah State. Nevada is shooting less than 30% from outside the arc, a big problem when the 3-pointer is such a big part of modern college basketball.  Nevada usually enjoys a strong home court edge, but is just 3-11 to the number at Lawlor Events Center this season.

5. Larry Eustachy, Southern Miss, 7-17-1 ATS. Eustachy hasn’t had the recent success that others on this list have had, but he brought an Iowa State team to the Elite 8 within the past decade and has bounced back from drinking himself out of Ames to establish respectability at a moribund Southern Miss program.  Returning 6 starters from a team with a winning record in Conference USA last season, the Golden Eagles were supposed to take a big step up.  Instead, they were on a 1-10 spread run before covering at +23 in a 16-point loss against a sleepy Memphis team last Saturday. Since Eustachy is making no excuses, foregoing a contract extension and giving money back to the university, we won’t make any for him either.

The fact that these coach’s are burning money doesn’t mean that they’ll continue to do so.  Maybe they’ll turn things around in their conference tournaments and reward those bettors supporting them at Vegas and online sportsbooks. But it is worth noting how even well regarded coaches can have underachieving years and struggle to turn things around.

Let’s take a look at Thursday night’s college and NBA card, where the pro games are fewer, but more interesting, than the power conference college contests.

1. As you might expect, offshore and Vegas sportsbooks do big volume on the Thursday night TNT games.  There’s usually, at most, one other game going on in the Association, and sometimes, like tonight, no other offerings.  If there are spotlight games in college, they tend to be out west, with lesser TV visibility and a time slot unfriendly to those east of the Rockies.   People love to bet TV games, so the TNT games get hit pretty hard by the public.

2. Mavs visiting New Orleans is a solid matchup.  In the late game, Portland travels to altitude without rest, and takes on a Nugget team that has a fresh superstar, as Carmelo Anthony is off his one game suspension.  It looks like all parties have put Anthony’s refusal to be subbed for in Indy behind them and there doesn’t appear to be lingering animosity between Anthony and George Karl.  Denver got off to a fast start in Detroit before wearing down late, and their offensive flow suffered without ‘Melo, as the Nuggets had only 18 assists on their 37 hoops.

3.  We’ve seen some interesting slates of games in the Pac Ten lately, but tonight is not one of them, as there isn’t a single matchup between teams that both have winning records in league play.  Conference leader Washington, criminally underrated nationally, is off before taking on cross-state rival Wazzou this weekend.  The ESPN talking heads blather on about the likes of Notre Dame, Maryland, and Texas yet rarely touch on the team with the game-and-a-half lead in the Pac 10.

4. “Arch Madness” gets going tonight with the donkey games in the the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.  The MVC, which brought little experience into the season, is down a good bit this year.  Sagarin has Creighton at #52, Pomeroy has them #50. then there’s nobody else until Illinois State at #75/#74 and Northern Iowa at #81/#86 respectively.   Nobody else is in either top 100. Back in 2007 Sagarin had 6 MVC teams in the top 74 and Pomeroy had the same 6 teams ranked 77 or higher.  In 2006 both had 6 Valley entrants inside of their top 60.   This looks like a one-big league, so if they’re going to prove anything it will be in the NIT and CBI.

5. One non-power conference that has a couple of interesting games tonight is the Atlantic 10, where a pair of heated rivalries take place.  Xavier hosts Dayton and the X men remember that the Flyers nailed them 71-58 as home underdogs.  St. Joseph’s and Temple face off in a game that is critically important in the land of cheesesteaks and soft pretzels.  Temple won the first go-around 61-59 at the Palestra.  This one is at the Licouras Center on Temple’s campus.

Enjoy the Thursday card. In our next edition we’ll isolate some well-regarded coaches whose teams are costing bettors big-time this season.

It’s the last week of the regular season in college hoops and the dog days of the NBA.  Most of these items will help you battle the sportsbooks on Wednesday, but admittedly, there is some meandering.

1.  Tuesday night appeared to be Christmas week in the Evergreen State, as Washington beat the Seattle Redhawks and Gonzaga beat the South Carolina-Upstate Spartans in contests that had the look and feel of those played in December.  The combined scores totaled 177-100 in “why are they playing?” games properly ignored by the Vegas and offshore sportsbook rotation.

2. Playing their last home game tonight, Georgia Tech is quietly having a dreadful season.  Paul Hewitt has won 7 ACC games or more in 7 of his first 8 years on The Flats, but the Jackets are 1-13 in ACC play.  Both the team and the player would be better off had the talented Jarvaris Crittendon hung around and learned to play basketball instead of averaging less than 4 points per game in his second year with the Wizards.   Much has been made of the Jackets losing some close games, which they have, but the pointspread doesn’t lie, and Tech is 7-16 to the number, including 4-10 in conference play.

3. Oklahoma at Missouri is the game of the night in college hoops, and I was looking to play the Tigers after their blowout loss to Kansas Sunday.  The Tigers were never in that one, trailing 45-19 at the half.  But a bounceback will have to happen without my money, as Vegas and offshore sportsbooks have the Tigers laying 4 points into an Oklahoma team that has only a single loss with Blake Griffin in the lineup.   Tough to buck either team in that one.

4. The NBA game of the night isn’t Memphis at the Clippers.  And it isn’t Washington at Oklahoma City.  Maybe it’s Houston at Utah.  But the Rockets are in a tough situation, playing in altitude after throttling Toronto at home last night.  That’s why Vegas and offshore sportsbooks opened Utah at -7.5 only to see bettors push it up to -8.5 and beyond.

5. The NBA betting markets are frequently ahead of the  injury reports, so the fact that the Mavericks have been bet from -1 up to -3 against the Spurs suggested the Josh Howard will be playing tonight.  Or maybe people just think that Mark Cuban’s disgust at the no-show by the Mavs in the OKC will spur them on to glory this evening.  Not that all that much glory is available in midweek games in early March in the NBA.

Good luck tonight, and be careful.