This year’s Men’s Division I College Basketball Tournament, aka El Gran Baile, The Big Dance or March Madness—looks like one that could be pretty wide open and it does honestly seem that we could have as many as 15 teams capable of challenging for the top honors in the NCAAB odds. Various Conference Tournaments are already underway and both the Selection Sunday (set for March 13) and the 78th edition of the NCAA Tournament itself (taking place between March 15th and April 4th) will be upon us before you know it.
Betting Keys For A Successful NCAA Basketball Tournament
Unfortunately for most bettors, high-paying NCAA Basketball Brackets and success on the collegiate hardwood curve are hard to come by these days. This necessitates creating your own plan of successful wagering on the NCAA Tournament, something that can be encouraged by the key March Madness betting pointers we’ve analytically prepared for you below.Have a March Madness Betting Plan
Simple as it seems, this is the most primary and fundamental of all keys to successful NCAA Tournament betting. The men’s basketball NCAA Tournament is the second-biggest spectacle in the North American sportsbetting calendar, coming behind only the Super Bowl. For this reason, recreational bettors, casual basketball fans and pundits will flood the marketplace this month, each of them pummeling the internet with predictions, which can be very confusing to you and your picks. By having a plan, you will know what to avoid and what to take in, thus keeping yourself in focus. Besides checking up our NCAAB Articles and News section that is well-updated with relevant information, there are a couple other options to find solid information, as will be discussed in the course of this write-up.Go for Highest Seeds and Major Conference Teams that Are Often the Best Dancers
Looking at the last 10 years in the Men’s Basketball Tournament, you find that only two perceived small teams–Memphis (in Conference USA then) and Butler (twice when in the Horizon League before joining the Big East in 2014)—have made it to the National Championship Game, with the rest of the years featuring teams from the larger six major Men’s Basketball conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12). Meanwhile, in that 10-year span, the ACC, Big East and ACC have each won three championships, with the Big 12 taking home the other one (Kansas Jayhawks in 2008). Interesting to note is that, over that that decade span (2006-2015), we’ve not had any Big Ten Champions (four Big Ten schools have lost in the National Championship game in that span) and the Pac-12 has also not had any champions (only UCLA made the Championship Game vs. Florida in 2006). When you are filling your brackets, it is therefore very crucial that you keep such statistics in mind and avoid getting swayed by the notions about small teams rising from nowhere to win the National title. However good Seton Hall is playing right now, or happy as you may be that Yale finally clinched its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1962, do not be duped into picking such longshot teams to claim the nation’s top college basketball honors because it’s never going to happen. In addition, recent NCAAB betting history has it that only the high-seeded teams fare well in March Madness, with just two double-digit seeds (#11 VCU in 2011 and #11 George Mason in 2006) making the last ten Final Fours out of a possible 40 teams. That translates to just 5%, so keep away from low-seeded teams if you really want to be successful with your brackets and NCAA Basketball betting Futures.Know When to Fade The Public
Every once in a while, the public is right in the NCAAB lines, but for the majority of times, trusting them leads to big losses and misplaced priorities. Last year, for example, everyone was high on Kentucky and its unbeaten record, but it is Duke who eventually lifted the National title. The biggest challenge with the public is that their bets and predictions often favor the teams they like, regardless of their team’s actual performance level. North Carolina fans will bet on North Carolina, and Virginia fans will always favor Virginia in their picks. Usually, these teams are pretty good, but as is the tradition of NCAAB betting, such teams can’t always keep up with the hype. You need a good example, simply take a look at how both Duke and Kentucky failed to live up to their hype at the start of the season, going as far as getting thrown out of the top-25 AP Poll at some point. When teams strap onto their dancing shoes for the Big Dance, such household names frequently find themselves matched up against champions from smaller conferences in the early rounds. Casual bettors who aren’t familiar with strong small-conference teams like the Monmouth Hawks (27-6 SU, 20-11 ATS) often assumes that there will be an easy win for the big team. What such bettors do not realize is that some of these small teams are very good in certain betting aspects such as covering the spread or winning on neutral ground, which could result in the upsets that are the real reasons behind the name March Madness. If you find a betting matchup between a capable opponent from the mid-majors or low majors, and an overrated team from a major conference (like Duke or Purdue, as of now), be sure to make a logical decision rather than just being all emotional because you support a good but out-of-form team.
