The other day, I was trolling through Twitter and saw that someone had sent me a question about the ACC/Big 10 Challenge. And then I saw another. And another. Mostly, people wanted to know who I liked. So then I trolled through some info sites -- VegasInsider.com, PreGame.com, MadduxSports.com -- looking for spreads. And I saw this one:
Wisconsin plus-4 at home vs. Duke. Even better, the number had moved up from 3.5 based on the fact there was loads of public money coming in on the Dookies.
In that one moment, I was reminded why handicapping college basketball is so much fun. Forget about the inherent advantage sharps have over bookmakers because of the sheer volume of games. I've written about that before. College basketball is great because so many teams are completely predictable year after year. Save for a few egomaniacal mercenaries or full-on house cleaning, coaches become institutions at their schools. Jim Calhoun at UConn, Roy Williams at UNC, Bill Self at Kansas, Coach K at Duke, Ben Howland at UCLA. That's true even at the next rung down the ladder, where smart athletic directors get good coaches who fit their program and no one feels the need to let ambition and ego get in the way. Like Bo Ryan at Wisconsin or Bruce Weber at Illinois. These guys will have to be dragged from these gyms by their fingernails.
Because of lengthy tenures, you know what you are going to get with teams like these. Unlike the NFL -- where the average coach sticks around for as long as a halftime break, player turnover is constant and systems come and go like novelty jerseys -- college basketball coaches are the program. They run the same game plan every year and they recruit the same types of players every year.
That is very comforting if you are a bettor.
For example, Duke is always going to get prep stars who show flashes of brilliance but rarely live up to their expectations in big games. And Coach K is going to rely on the three, even to his team's detriment. Meanwhile, you know that Bo Ryan is going to recruit the upper Midwest hard, finding kids who are long, lanky, shoot well and play farm-tough D.
Put a team of dazzlers relying on the three on the road in a rowdy house against a team of no-nonsense kids unimpressed with themselves, and that plus-4 is going to look like a gift from bookmakers, a bushel of low-hanging mangos. But you only know that if you know the history of the programs.
Oh yeah, I was right. Wisconsin never trailed and beat the Blue Devils 73-69.
Sadly, I can't give you a crash course on the personality of every team in college hoops. I am way, way too busy. But, thanks to my BALLS Index partner Sal from MadduxSports.com, I can give you a weekly primer on who's looking like a good bet and who's not.
We're going to call this the Sweat Barometer, and the idea is simple: Of the most popular teams (the AP's Top 10), how well do they do against the spread? And, how much will they make you sweat when you bet them? We'll know this by tracking the margin by which they cover -- or don't. For example, through six games this season, Duke was 4-2 ATS and covered by a margin of 6.5 points. Generally, that would make the Blue Devils a good bet. On the flip side, through six games Purdue is 3-2-1 ATS, but actually falls short of covering by an average of 1.25 points per game (listed as minus-1.25). That's bad. I'll provide a one-line explanation for why the numbers may be the way they are for each team.
The Sweat Barometer will run every Thursday during the college hoops season and will list the ATS records of the AP Top 10, their sweat margin and their coverage streak. You can also check out MadduxSports.com, for other in-depth analysis on the rest of college hoops.
And remember this: The Sweat Barometer is a brand new tool. If there are parts you think that can be tweaked or added or subtracted or expanded, let me know so we can improve on it all year.