NCAA Tourney 2010 Sports Gambling thoughts part 1.

Here's some thoughts on the NCAA tournament. I'll include some tidbits for sports bettors to distort, but if you like sports betting there is no better time than the NCAA tournament. Of late this had changed, but for a good 15 years there were some easy rules to win money in the NCAAs.

Used to be that in the first round take all dogs and you'll win at a surprising clip, enough to beat the juice and profit. Second round the lines schew the other way load up on the favorites. The profit is smaller than the first round but still enough to return a winning two days.

Nowadays, perhaps because of more savvy bettors, and Vegas taking into account the trends, the favorites have had a little more success in the first round (pendulum going too far) and the lines in the second round are tighter. Good news, bad news there.

Good news if you got a feeling about a team and a line don't worry about the old trends go with your gut. If you want to bet a game but know nothing about the two, in the first round lean more to the favorites, and in the second round, flip a coin, pick your favorite color or have fun rooting for the underdog.

You'll notice that oft times a team may be an underdog according to seed but a favorite according to Vegas. As far as brackets go, those teams have a high return of wins, so take that into account as far as advancing lower seeds. Many in your bracket pool probably won't be looking at the lines when they make their picks and won't know how good a particular underdog is.

Also, when the analysts all love a team--listen to them. Sucks that it's paint by numbers but these guys have sniffed out teams that have won early round games in years past. Look for quasi-consensus. Sienna was on everybody's tongue the last couple of years and sure enough they won. Davidson's run was a little deeper than most thought but EVERYBODY was telling you how dangerous they were.

Interested fact about Davidson, and how they contradict the principle there is no such thing is a good loss. That squad played a tough regular season schedule but lost to every big name team they played. Didn't win one single meaningful game. Fortunately for them they won their conference because they might not have merited selection had they not. Once there they discovered how to beat big teams and almost went to the final four.

So look for little teams that had tough schedules and don't dock them too much if they lost a lot of tough (close) games. Cornell didn't beat anybody of note, but on the road they almost beat Kansas. Arguably, their resume justifies their seed despite Jay Bilas telling you they should be a five, but he is right about their ability far exceeding their placement.

Their first round opponent Temple is a tough, disciplined team and really got the shaft not only with their crappy seed but getting Cornell as their opponent. I'll get to more on the A10 in my next post as they have three teams that could be bracket busters only because the public and the BCS committee members don't realize how good that league is.

Staying on point with sports betting trends from the first round you also want to look for team names from the lesser conferences you've seen a lot of, because experience equals first round success. And don't fall in love with teams that ran hot in conference tournaments. If for most of the year they were mediocre, don't think they are suddenly good.

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