March Madness Manifesto

As we approach the best time of the year, Pez asked us to share our guide on how we approach betting on March Madness, and I loved the idea. As the next few weeks go on, I think there are a lot of valuable opportunities to deposit information into your handicapping piggy bank, and I’ll detail how I approach the tournament below.

I think the most important thing you can do, time permitting, is watch as many games as you possibly can without disrupting your work or family life. Personally, I handicap based on what I see, and this is the most valuable time of the year to get a pulse on how teams are trending. For the most part, teams have established their identities and now we can evaluate how these teams are trending.

Conference Tournaments

The sentiment above leads me into the conference tournament weekends, especially the mid and low major tournaments. If you’re a hoops junkie, you don’t need any convincing to watch these games, but this is some of the best theatre of the season.

More importantly, you can get a really good feel for how these teams perform so when these conference champions emerge and the brackets are revealed you’re already a step ahead in handicapping the opening round.

For example, last year you could see that Little Rock and their pack line principles could pose difficulties for a Purdue team that loves to score at the rim. Or, you may have seen that Yale did an excellent job at protecting the glass and that could be troublesome for a Baylor team that last year relied on rebounding their misses.

Matchups

The previous paragraphs lead me into my next point, which is that the NCAA tournament is entirely about matchups. With 350 plus teams in D1 basketball, there are countless different styles and schemes that teams have. It can be difficult to put each game under a microscope but that is unequivocally what is most important to having a profitable March in my opinion.

Specifically, when I’m handicapping a 4 vs 13, 5 vs 12, etc. I want to look and see if the lower seeded team has good guard play. You really need guards that can handle pressure and are equipped to knock down jumpers. I also want to see if they have the athletes to compete on the boards.

Understanding the Market

To have a successful March, I also think it’s absolutely peril to understand the market. College basketball is unique in that when it draws the betting publics attention, they are enamored with the underdog. There will undoubtedly be upsets along the way, but I would strongly caution you to beware of the trendy underdog.

I don’t have the tools handy to calculate, but I remember in 2015, going into the Sweet 16 weekend underdogs receiving more than 50% of spread bets were something to the tune of 5-10 ATS. I think it’s also valuable to approach fading a team off a big first round upset in their second round game, as they are coming off a hugely emotional win with a 1 day turnaround and they won’t be sneaking up on their second round opponent.  

I’m not advocating blindly betting against the public, but if you aren’t taking this information into account you are doing yourself a disservice.

Summary

In summation, this is how my handicapping checklist goes:

1. The matchup: Do I any see any initial edges that really stick out to me?
2. KenPom: Is there statistical evidence that supports my thoughts? If there isn’t, I will dig deeper and see if I may have overlooked something. If the stats align, then I keep it on my list.
3. Market perspective: This is where I will check line moves and betting splits and determine if the side is on my card.

Good luck this March, and if you have any questions please reach out in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Smithers513.