Top sportsbooks have released their NCAAB odds for the upcoming Final Four action between FAU and San Diego State on the one side and Miami and UConn on the other.
We want to be as ready as possible to bet on these games and on future NCAA Tournament games. In order to achieve this state of readiness, let’s examine the NCAA Tournament games that have taken place so far and see what we might learn from them.
1. Don’t Trust Seeds
How did we get to this seemingly crazy Final Four involving FAU, San Diego State, Miami, and UConn? Now, forget UConn for a moment, because their participation in the Final Four surprises nobody. But not many people had the other three teams advancing this far.
One reason why not many people placed future bets on those other teams is their low seed. When upsets happen, the mainstream sports media paints them as part of the madness and unpredictability of March.
But this narrative covers up a problem with March Madness that many people do not realize: the NCAA Tournament committee routinely makes the wrong seeding decisions.
Look at Houston
Much was made of, for example, Houston going down because it was a one-seed. But did the Cougars really deserve to be a one-seed after beating basically nobody during the regular season?
People invested in Houston to advance probably because they shared the same bias as the Tournament committee members, who, when deciding to make the Cougars a one seed, were surely relying on their perception of Houston insofar as it was constructed in seasons before this one when they did achieve impressive victories.
Now Look at FAU
On the other end of things, FAU is clearly better than what you expect a nine-seed to be. The Owls are clearly better than Tennessee, for example, which was a four-seed and failed to hang even almost as closely with the Owls as eight-seed Memphis did.
So, it will take discipline, but when betting on NCAA Tournament games you should really just ignore seeds. They are the often arbitrary products of flawed thinking from people with conference and personal biases that induce them to make poor decisions.
2. Defense Does Not Win Championships
There is an adage that defense wins championships. People have, correspondingly, been scared to bet on Miami, which cannot be said to be a good defensive team; the Hurricanes rank 104th in defensive efficiency.
But they beat a Houston team (by 14 points, no less) that ranks fifth nationally in defensive efficiency. Most recently, they defeated a Longhorn squad that ranks 13th in defensive efficiency. They won both of those games while scoring almost 90 points; a team does not need to defend well when it scores this readily.
Miami’s offense is uniquely stacked; several talented scorers can be relied on to be productive for them. So far, the Hurricanes are trying to prove that offense wins championships, and they are doing a good job.
Maybe you shouldn’t count them out for their upcoming game against UConn, which ranks 11th in defensive efficiency.
3. The Second Half Can Be Very Different From the First
Recency bias, the phenomenon by which the human brain accords exaggerated significance to the most recent events, often gets the best of us.
It is easy to see the first half and to think that the game is decided then and there. But the Miami game, in which the Hurricanes launched a decisive second-half comeback after being down double digits, is a great example of how a team can readily turn a game on its head.
For purposes of live betting, of betting at half-time, and to the end of preserving our sanity when watching these games, we should be open to the possibility that the second half proceeds very differently from the first.
4. Try to Bet More on Easier Games
When determining whether to bet on a game and when determining your wager size, you should consider how easily you think your NCAAB picks will hit. If you think that your play might come down to the wire, then you might at least want to reduce your wager size.
For example, it would really be a shame to have bet on the Creighton moneyline, only to have the referee decide the game by calling a touch foul after the referees had let both teams play very physically. In turn, you had a lot of fun if UConn ATS was one of your picks at U.S. betting sites.
5. Avoid Conference Bias
People think highly of certain conferences and less of other conferences. Such thoughts are often justified but the conclusions to which they lead often are not.
For example, the Big 12 team K-State lost to a Conference USA team, FAU. The Big 12 is certainly a stronger conference overall, but that overall conference assessment should not determine how you wager on individual games.
So, you should bet on the games by considering the teams. You can consider the conference to which each team belongs when you evaluate and assess the quality of each one, but don’t let your conference prejudices thoughtlessly induce you to bet on or against certain teams.
Teams can be better than other teams in their conference and, despite playing in bad conferences, they can match up uniquely well against teams in better conferences.
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