College Basketball
Betting Advice
It's crucial to understand some very important college basketball betting advice before ever placing a bet on the college game. The criterion we cover here should serve as the foundation to your college basketball handicapping philosophy. As with our NBA Betting Advice chapter, we'll continue to follow the same strict guidelines when betting on college hoops...as you should with any sport you bet. In other words, the initial college basketball betting advice we list here should be followed no matter what the sport is you're wagering on. With that being the case though, I'll be adding a few tidbits to each criterion that specifically relates to the college game. We'll also be adding one additional piece of college basketball betting advice that relates to college basketball in particular. So let's line out how we'll approach this chapter. Directly below, we'll list our general criteria. Clicking on each one will take you to that specific section within our NBA Betting Advice chapter. Below that, we'll hit on a few points about each criterion as it relates to college basketball. Nothing groundbreaking, but rather some college basketball betting advice that should always be followed. After this, we'll touch on a piece of advice that relates specifically to college hoops. It may not be new to you, but it's something I've always followed within my own handicapping and can serve as a great starting point to going in the right direction. As previously stated, click on each link below to read our insight on each piece of advice. Proper Money Management Multiple Sportsbook Accounts Research Keep Precise Records Stay Focused and Set Goals
Money Management
Money management for college basketball really isn't any different than it is for any other sport. You have to be strict and always stick with your strategy.College basketball has over 300 teams, which means there are literally thousands of lined games throughout the year. If you have the time and know how, then by all means feel free to handicap them all...but if you do, you're going to be wagering on a lot of games (most likely) which means you should probably only bet a small percentage of your bankroll the majority of the time. However, if you narrow your focus to a couple conferences (as we suggest below) then you may be able to average around 2% of bankroll per wager. It really just depends on your own personal style of handicapping and the expected cover percentage you've handicapped for each game (in other words, a team that you believe has a 60% chance of covering should have a larger percent of bankroll bet on them than a team with a 55% cover percentage). Regardless of how you handicap, it's vital to always follow this piece of college basketball betting advice. Money management can't help you win more games, but it can help preserve and grow your bankroll. Even more important though, it will help you get through the inevitable losing streaks.
Multiple Sportsbook Accounts
Nothing new here with this piece of college basketball betting advice. However, with college lines being so volatile, this tip is absolutely crucial.College betting lines, especially totals, can vary 1-3 points depending on the sportsbook. If you can't take advantage of the best line, then you're just throwing money away. The more erratic the lines, the greater the importance of multiple outs. Just as we explained in the NBA Betting Advice chapter, this can turn wins into pushes, and pushes into wins. In college hoops though, with lines differing so much, this can turn losses into wins quite easily. If you're just starting out, then simply go with a couple sportsbooks. I would recommend a sharp book like The Greek and square one like Bodog (the lines can vary greatly between these two because one caters to professionals, who typically bet more, and another caters to the square handicapper, so their lines will be shaded a bit). Once you have a couple accounts open, you can then open another after you have added to your bankroll...and so on and so forth. Regardless, multiple outs in college basketball can have a dramatic positive effect on your overall ROI through a season...JUST DO IT.
Research
For fantastic college basketball information and data, I would definitely recommend you check out Ken Pomeroy's website at KenPom.com. He offers by far some of the best college basketball information I have ever found...and the funny thing is, it's not even geared for handicappers.We'll definitely talk more about his website within our College Basketball Betting Guide, but I wanted to introduce it to you here simply because of the valuable research it offers. Another website to check out when it comes to college basketball betting advice is The Prediction Tracker. It's another very valuable research site that offers a ton of predictive statistical data from a number of handicapping sites. If you're into statistics, then you're going to love this site (they offer power ratings, strength of schedule information, game predictions, tracking, etc.) Prediction Tracker is basically a site that keeps track of game predictions from a number of different statistical handicapping websites. We'll talk more about it later in the Guide, but again, I just wanted to introduce it here. As you can see, just from the two sites I've recommended, there is a ton of data out there that is absolutely free and can be quite valuable to your handicapping (if you're the statistical type). Again though, we'll discuss how this data can be useful to your handicapping later on in the guide.
Keep Precise Records
Really not much to add here with this piece of college basketball betting advice. Record keeping is important and it's vital that you keep track of your wagers and where they've been placed.Once you have 3 or 4 sportsbook accounts opened, this is more important than ever. However, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. A lot of sites like SBR Forum offer tools for tracking purposes. You can always create your own spreadsheet, but they have a decent one to get you started. The bottom line: Just keep precise records
Stay Focused and Set Goals
Again, nothing earth shattering with this piece of college basketball betting advice, but it's surprising how many people don't take the time to set some goals before the beginning of the season.It's been proven that individuals who set career goals are much more successful than those that don't...and I believe the same rules applies when it comes to betting on college basketball. It's not hard and doesn't take any time at all. Sit down, take 30 minutes and write down what you're wanting to accomplish for the season. This way, you'll have something you're working for and can always look back on to see where you are at in accomplishing those goals throughout the season...not to mention they will keep you focused when you're going through the tough times you'll be sure to experience.
Narrow Your Focus/Become an Expert
A final piece of college basketball betting advice is somewhat specific to college, but can also be applied to other sports as well. When first starting out (or even if you've been betting college hoops for a while with a less than successful win rate), narrow down your focus to 1-4 conferences.
What I like to do is focus on the BCS conference of the region I live in, the Big 12, because there is a lot of easy access to information through the newspapers and sports talk radio. Obviously, the more informed you are, the better you're handicapping will be.However, even more important in my opinion, I recommend you focus all of your other handicapping efforts on 1-3 small/medium conferences that don't get nearly the attention. Become an absolute expert because this is where value and soft lines can be found. You need to be able to carve your niche and learn everything you can about these conferences because in college basketball handicapping, there's just to many teams to have time to focus on all of them...and the oddsmakers are well aware of this. I truly believe in this strategy and feel it's the best way to get started in college hoops. Eventually, you can start to handicap more conferences if you have the time and data. However, I would personally just stick to your niche.
The Wrap Up
So there you have it...some college basketball betting advice to help build the foundation of your college hoops betting strategy. While you may have read this before or are maybe even following some of this criteria, it truly will have an impact on your long term success.Don't get me wrong, nothing is more important than picking more winners than losers. However, anything that you have the opportunity to control (all of the college basketball betting advice listed here), you must take advantage of it. So now that we have the groundwork laid out, let's move on to some college basketball betting tips. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can always come back for a little reiteration (because it can be tough at times). As always, best of luck in all your sports betting endeavors.
Return to Top of the College Basketball Betting Advice Page Back to the College Basketball Betting Guide
New! Comments
Have your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below.
|
