College Basketball Betting: “The Quicks” for February 27th
Where the value lies on Thursday
Welcome back to “The Quicks” - our high-volume, micro-betting venture in college basketball betting! If you’re new, or need a refresher, here’s our angle as we hope to turn a possible edge into profitability for the rest of the CBB season.
Texas (+3.5) was a torture chamber of a bad beat, but you can’t focus on the many permutations that allowed a team like Arkansas to cover in overtime late last night, especially when so many of these games come down to free throws late. Though, it was a twist that we wanted Razorbacks’ guard D.J. Wagner to make one to seal a Longhorns’ cover, but he could not, sending the game to OT.
We noted that Tuesday was a relatively uneventful night around the point spread, and, from our lips to the gambling gods ears, more of Wednesday’s games came down to the charity stripe - both for (Penn State) and against (California, Texas).
Instead of lamenting the bounce of the ball on the rim, the takeaway from a 10-14 evening is that sometimes a bet just loses.
The ‘elevator pitch’ of our handicapping premise using ShotQuality numbers is that we’re taking the subjectivity out of the pick and hoping that a team we’re backing will:
Shoot better than they usually due because they’ve been creating a higher rate of good shots than they have made this season
Force their opponent into worse shooting than normal because our team is better at limiting good shots than their opponent’s pure shooting numbers suggest
Or the team we’re fading will do the inverse - score less than usual because they’re ShotQuality stinks or allow more points than usual because they’re defensive ShotQuality hasn’t been as good as the raw numbers suggest. Any combination of the four will do.
If given the choice, as personal preference, I would rather not to lay a ton of points in a college basketball game, but there’s been more than a few times when a big favorite we’ve backed has covered against what turned out to be not-better judgement.
On Wednesday, the numbers suggested Memphis (-13) and Lipscomb (-19.5) would be valuable bets. Neither bet won - both by a basket, but was it a bad idea to back either or both?
As part of our efforts to evaluate bets, we go to the boxscore.
Memphis did Memphis things - dominated the glass, created turnovers, and even shot 49.2% from the field. They only allowed Rice five threes on 21 attempts. A good recipe for a 12-point win. The one thing missing? The Tigers - sixth in the country in 3-point shooting at 39% - were just 2/13 from three at home. Rice is a decent 83rd in the country in defensive 3-point field-goal percentage, but 156th in adjDEF shot quality. If any betting handicap included a light night from deep for Memphis being the difference between a 12- and 14-point win, it would be a flimsy case.
Lipscomb beat Central Arkansas by 18 and clinched the top seed and home-court for the ASUN tournament, but we needed two more points from the Bisons or two fewer from the Bears. However, a quick look at the boxscore reveals there’s nothing to really complain about:
Lipscomb shot almost 40% from three (above their average), and allowed just four threes on 20 Central Arkansas heaves. That’s a net of +27 points. The Bisons were also excellent at the free-throw line. Maybe the difference was one extra basket than usual for the Bears, who shot 40% overall this season, but with a projected fair line of -22 and an actual spread of -19.5, sometimes a team does everything right and only wins by 18.
Maybe the numbers are levelling out after a few weeks of doing this, but with 29 bets on 54 games Thursday, we’re dropping down close to 50% of board that has some value.
For a refresher on how we hope to find an edge in betting college basketball, click here.
Thursday, February 27th
Yesterday: 10-14
Season: 236-219-4
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