How To Handicap College Basketball

College basketball handicapping has gained a lot of popularity over the years due to the beauty and fun of March Madness. Many offices and other places of employment have pools that payout to the winner of who most accurately creates a bracket for the tournament. Creating your own bracket can be fun, but in order to win, you will need a lot more information than just who is ranked higher than whom.

For starters, you need to have a familiarity with the game. Following collegiate basketball during the regular season can help with this. If you only follow NCAA hoops for solely March and April, you are missing out on a lot of information. Consider a team like BYU. Currently, they have a very good team, but they are in second place in their conference behind #6 ranked San Diego State University. Any bracket that blindly included #7 BYU would have them losing to San Diego, but if you had followed during the regular season, you would know that BYU beat San Diego State back in January.

Suppose Jimmer Freddette was injured for the remainder of the season. BYU’s Jimmer Freddette is a very good guard and averages more than 25 points per game. BYU would drop in the rankings, but would still have a good shot at the postseason. Now, if Freddette returned to the team during March Madness, he would undoubtedly be a large factor on the team again. But if the rankings didn’t show this, how would you know what type of influence he had on BYU’s team? Unless you paid close attention during the regular season, you wouldn’t. Successful college basketball handicapping requires a large time investment on your part. The payout of your office’s pool and the respect that you will gain from your coworkers will be your reward for such diligent attention.

College basketball handicapping is much more than March Madness, though. If you are able to successfully handicap games during the regular season, you will undoubtedly have a better chance during the NCAA tournament. Of course, projecting out just whom will be playing each other come later in March and April is sometimes an impossible task, but if you are able to pick winners during the regular season, you will have an advantage over the guy in the next cubicle. The regular season is good practice for the postseason. This will allow you to have a clearer picture of what each team is capable of. Even just following Conference championships will give you a better idea of how teams will perform under pressure. In the Big East, Syracuse is ranked 6th. If Syracuse can beat all five of the teams ranked above them, you will discover that they are a great clutch team with Final Four potential. Just looking at their #12 in the NCAA ranking is not enough to gain this information.

By: John Torres

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