How to win betting college basketball

How to Bet on College Basketball: 12 Tips for 2022

There are three different answers you may want when asking a question like how to bet on college basketball.

• “I’m looking at Florida State -9.5 vs. UNC, and I have no idea what that means. Help.”
• “I have a good idea of who I want to bet on, but I don’t know where to do it.”
• “I understand sports betting and have a sportsbook to bet at, but I want to sharpen my handicapping skills.”

Below, we’ll answer all three and much more.

Click on a section to skip ahead.

1. Sports Betting Terms

2. Where to Place CBB Bets

3. Handicapping College Hoops

4. How to Start With So Many Games

5. Mistakes to Avoid

6. Additional Resources + Sites

Let’s use an example.

Florida State is a 9.5-point favorite over North Carolina.

PointsBet lists each bet type from left to right — spread, total, moneyline.

Florida State -9.5 (Point Spread): A point spread is the great equalizer in sports betting. It’s a bet on the margin of victory in a game, adjusted for each team’s ability.

Florida State was a -9.5 favorite over UNC, meaning FSU needs to win by 10 points or more for you to win your bet if you backed the Seminoles. That minus sign indicates FSU is favored.

If you bet UNC +9.5, you need the Tar Heels to lose by fewer than nine points or win the game to win your bet. The plus sign means Carolina is an underdog.

Over/Under 144.5 (Total): Outside the point spread, the next most popular betting option for college basketball is the total, also known as an over/under.

Here, you’re simply wagering on how many points the teams will combine to score.

Based on each team’s offensive and defensive efficiency, pace and more, the betting market expects about 144-145 points in this game.

North Carolina +380, FSU -500 (Moneyline): The point spread is a great equalizer, but the moneyline judges the teams in a similar way. But only winning the game straight-up matters, and it’s priced accordingly.

If you think North Carolina can win this game outright, you’ll get paid $3.80 for every $1 risked because the Tar Heels were listed at +380 (since they were far worse than FSU at this time).

A $10 bet would pay $38, plus the original $10 back.

If you want to back Florida State to just win straight-up at -500, you need to risk $5 for every $1. So a $50 bet will pay $10 (plus your $50 back).

Full online sports betting is available in almost 20 states now.

• Full list of states with online betting
• Our favorite sportsbooks
• Tracking the status of states without legal betting

OK, here’s the fun part. You’ve bet on college basketball before, but you want to get better.

Let’s first break down how point spreads are created in college hoops.

The easiest place to start is with points per 100 possessions, both on offense and defense. It gives us a better picture of a team’s ability in a vacuum. Raw stats like points per game are influenced too much by pace.

Once they have a baseline for efficiency, sites like KenPom.com or BartTorvik.com will calculate adjusted efficiency numbers that account for both pace and opponent ability.

Those sites will also project every final score for every game using those efficiency metrics.

Oddsmakers and the betting market have been using these statistical projections for a long time, though, and usually aren’t too far off (unless there’s an injury or some new information, which those sites don’t account for).

Efficiency numbers need building blocks, though. That leads us to the Four Factors.

If you’re using your own models, you can weigh statistics differently, put more or less emphasis on recent form, bake in shooting regression and more.

How do basketball teams win games? There are four key contributors. First coined by Dean Oliver, the Four Factors and their weights are:

• Shooting (40%)
• Turnovers (25%)
• Rebounding (20%)
• Free Throws (15%)

KenPom.com popularized the Four Factors in college basketball, which evolved to:

• Effective Field Goal% (same as FG%, but 3-pointers are worth 50% more)
• Turnover Rate (turnovers/possessions)
• Offensive Rebounding Rate (OR / (OR + DR chances)
• Free Throw Rate (FT Attempts/FG Attempts)

I’m partial to teams that can shoot in modern basketball, so I tend to weigh effective field goal percentage more than the other factors.

Using the Four Factors above, you can find mismatches within a game.

Let’s take a look at this game between Texas A&M and Missouri.

There are mismatches all over the place, but two stand out:

• The ability of each defense to force turnovers against a turnover-prone offense.
• Missouri’s shot suppression on defense vs. A&M’s anemic shooting offense.

KenPom’s projected total for this game was just 121 — a 61-60 Missouri win — so the fact that these are two turnover-prone teams on offense isn’t some secret. But there are still situations where mismatches can help a bettor, or where the market is underestimating their impact.

BartTorvik.com is my favorite place to find a team’s current form. And it’s free!

Using filters at the top, you can view all efficiency stats for every team over your set time frame. Comparing recent form to full-season statistical profiles can be a good way to find undervalued and overvalued teams in the betting market.

The time ranges also allow you to back-test easily.

Within the team pages, you can see charts that show statistics for each team over time. The blue line is the moving average, the dashed line is the 5-game moving average, while the red and green plot points are individual games.

This is Boise State’s offensive efficiency over time in 2019-20. The Broncos have been great in the last few weeks, indicated by the above-average plot points and rising 5-game moving average.

It’s impossible to handicap and follow all 353 Division I teams, so specializing in a few conferences is a good idea for both your bankroll and sanity.

Limits might be smaller on the “extra games” offered by sportsbooks, but you can still get several hundred dollars down per game. Don’t worry about hitting limits until you’re winning consistently.

It’s not easy to find information on Southland Conference injuries, for example. If you can follow the right people on Twitter and truly know a conference, it’s incredibly valuable.

Again, you can’t follow every team. You just can’t. So using data is imperative.

The first type of data you should use is the projection systems I mentioned above. They’ll give you a baseline for a team’s true ability.

The second type of data is our public betting data, PRO Report and Bet Labs systems. The public betting data will give you insights into sharp money and overvalued teams, while Bet Labs has thousands of historical college basketball games that you can use to create profitable betting systems.

Our PRO Report highlights games that are standing out according to our systems, expert picks, projections and sharp action.

You’ll never refine your handicapping without tracking it. You can use the Action Network app to log all your bets.

I’d also suggest tracking Closing Line Value in an Excel doc or Google Sheet. The more often you’re getting the best of the number, the more likely you’ll be successful, and you can get CLV in small-conference college basketball if you’re betting early.

If a betting line is way off from your projection, don’t blindly assume you’re right and the rest of the market is wrong. A lot of other smart people have looked at the price, and decided it was right.

Dig in and try to find some answers as to why things are so different.

This applies to all sports. Any trend not rooted in a large sample is probably just noise. Kansas being 4-1 ATS in its last five games is not predictive.

There are more than 150 games on a loaded college basketball Saturday, and it’s easy to lose big if you’re betting too many games. By specializing in a few conferences, it’s much more manageable and you won’t end up losing your bankroll on a bad day.

Here are some more sites to check out.

• Action PRO: Highlights proven signals from our projections, expert picks, systems and sharp action.
• KenPom.com. The original college basketball analytics resource. It costs $20 per year, but is well worth it.
• BartTorvik.com. Similar to KenPom, but free.
• Hoop-Math.com. They have a free and paid plan, but the free version has some interesting statistics on transition style and efficiency, shot selection and more.
• Massey Composite. Compiles more than 40 ratings systems.
• Haslametrics. Automated team capsules highlight mismatches that can be useful for betting.
• Sports Insights Injuries: Finding and tracking injuries in college basketball is difficult, so we’ve tried to make it a little easier.

How to Bet on College Basketball: 12 Tips for 2022

There are three different answers you may want when asking a question like how to bet on college basketball.

• “I’m looking at Florida State -9.5 vs. UNC, and I have no idea what that means. Help.”
• “I have a good idea of who I want to bet on, but I don’t know where to do it.”
• “I understand sports betting and have a sportsbook to bet at, but I want to sharpen my handicapping skills.”

Below, we’ll answer all three and much more.

Click on a section to skip ahead.

1. Sports Betting Terms

2. Where to Place CBB Bets

3. Handicapping College Hoops

4. How to Start With So Many Games

5. Mistakes to Avoid

6. Additional Resources + Sites

Let’s use an example.

Florida State is a 9.5-point favorite over North Carolina.

PointsBet lists each bet type from left to right — spread, total, moneyline.

Florida State -9.5 (Point Spread): A point spread is the great equalizer in sports betting. It’s a bet on the margin of victory in a game, adjusted for each team’s ability.

Florida State was a -9.5 favorite over UNC, meaning FSU needs to win by 10 points or more for you to win your bet if you backed the Seminoles. That minus sign indicates FSU is favored.

If you bet UNC +9.5, you need the Tar Heels to lose by fewer than nine points or win the game to win your bet. The plus sign means Carolina is an underdog.

Over/Under 144.5 (Total): Outside the point spread, the next most popular betting option for college basketball is the total, also known as an over/under.

Here, you’re simply wagering on how many points the teams will combine to score.

Based on each team’s offensive and defensive efficiency, pace and more, the betting market expects about 144-145 points in this game.

North Carolina +380, FSU -500 (Moneyline): The point spread is a great equalizer, but the moneyline judges the teams in a similar way. But only winning the game straight-up matters, and it’s priced accordingly.

If you think North Carolina can win this game outright, you’ll get paid $3.80 for every $1 risked because the Tar Heels were listed at +380 (since they were far worse than FSU at this time).

A $10 bet would pay $38, plus the original $10 back.

If you want to back Florida State to just win straight-up at -500, you need to risk $5 for every $1. So a $50 bet will pay $10 (plus your $50 back).

Full online sports betting is available in almost 20 states now.

• Full list of states with online betting
• Our favorite sportsbooks
• Tracking the status of states without legal betting

OK, here’s the fun part. You’ve bet on college basketball before, but you want to get better.

Let’s first break down how point spreads are created in college hoops.

The easiest place to start is with points per 100 possessions, both on offense and defense. It gives us a better picture of a team’s ability in a vacuum. Raw stats like points per game are influenced too much by pace.

Once they have a baseline for efficiency, sites like KenPom.com or BartTorvik.com will calculate adjusted efficiency numbers that account for both pace and opponent ability.

Those sites will also project every final score for every game using those efficiency metrics.

Oddsmakers and the betting market have been using these statistical projections for a long time, though, and usually aren’t too far off (unless there’s an injury or some new information, which those sites don’t account for).

Efficiency numbers need building blocks, though. That leads us to the Four Factors.

If you’re using your own models, you can weigh statistics differently, put more or less emphasis on recent form, bake in shooting regression and more.

How do basketball teams win games? There are four key contributors. First coined by Dean Oliver, the Four Factors and their weights are:

• Shooting (40%)
• Turnovers (25%)
• Rebounding (20%)
• Free Throws (15%)

KenPom.com popularized the Four Factors in college basketball, which evolved to:

• Effective Field Goal% (same as FG%, but 3-pointers are worth 50% more)
• Turnover Rate (turnovers/possessions)
• Offensive Rebounding Rate (OR / (OR + DR chances)
• Free Throw Rate (FT Attempts/FG Attempts)

I’m partial to teams that can shoot in modern basketball, so I tend to weigh effective field goal percentage more than the other factors.

Using the Four Factors above, you can find mismatches within a game.

Let’s take a look at this game between Texas A&M and Missouri.

There are mismatches all over the place, but two stand out:

• The ability of each defense to force turnovers against a turnover-prone offense.
• Missouri’s shot suppression on defense vs. A&M’s anemic shooting offense.

KenPom’s projected total for this game was just 121 — a 61-60 Missouri win — so the fact that these are two turnover-prone teams on offense isn’t some secret. But there are still situations where mismatches can help a bettor, or where the market is underestimating their impact.

BartTorvik.com is my favorite place to find a team’s current form. And it’s free!

Using filters at the top, you can view all efficiency stats for every team over your set time frame. Comparing recent form to full-season statistical profiles can be a good way to find undervalued and overvalued teams in the betting market.

The time ranges also allow you to back-test easily.

Within the team pages, you can see charts that show statistics for each team over time. The blue line is the moving average, the dashed line is the 5-game moving average, while the red and green plot points are individual games.

This is Boise State’s offensive efficiency over time in 2019-20. The Broncos have been great in the last few weeks, indicated by the above-average plot points and rising 5-game moving average.

It’s impossible to handicap and follow all 353 Division I teams, so specializing in a few conferences is a good idea for both your bankroll and sanity.

Limits might be smaller on the “extra games” offered by sportsbooks, but you can still get several hundred dollars down per game. Don’t worry about hitting limits until you’re winning consistently.

It’s not easy to find information on Southland Conference injuries, for example. If you can follow the right people on Twitter and truly know a conference, it’s incredibly valuable.

Again, you can’t follow every team. You just can’t. So using data is imperative.

The first type of data you should use is the projection systems I mentioned above. They’ll give you a baseline for a team’s true ability.

The second type of data is our public betting data, PRO Report and Bet Labs systems. The public betting data will give you insights into sharp money and overvalued teams, while Bet Labs has thousands of historical college basketball games that you can use to create profitable betting systems.

Our PRO Report highlights games that are standing out according to our systems, expert picks, projections and sharp action.

You’ll never refine your handicapping without tracking it. You can use the Action Network app to log all your bets.

I’d also suggest tracking Closing Line Value in an Excel doc or Google Sheet. The more often you’re getting the best of the number, the more likely you’ll be successful, and you can get CLV in small-conference college basketball if you’re betting early.

If a betting line is way off from your projection, don’t blindly assume you’re right and the rest of the market is wrong. A lot of other smart people have looked at the price, and decided it was right.

Dig in and try to find some answers as to why things are so different.

This applies to all sports. Any trend not rooted in a large sample is probably just noise. Kansas being 4-1 ATS in its last five games is not predictive.

There are more than 150 games on a loaded college basketball Saturday, and it’s easy to lose big if you’re betting too many games. By specializing in a few conferences, it’s much more manageable and you won’t end up losing your bankroll on a bad day.

Here are some more sites to check out.

• Action PRO: Highlights proven signals from our projections, expert picks, systems and sharp action.
• KenPom.com. The original college basketball analytics resource. It costs $20 per year, but is well worth it.
• BartTorvik.com. Similar to KenPom, but free.
• Hoop-Math.com. They have a free and paid plan, but the free version has some interesting statistics on transition style and efficiency, shot selection and more.
• Massey Composite. Compiles more than 40 ratings systems.
• Haslametrics. Automated team capsules highlight mismatches that can be useful for betting.
• Sports Insights Injuries: Finding and tracking injuries in college basketball is difficult, so we’ve tried to make it a little easier.

Click here to return to table of contents.

where to bet, handicap tips, resources and more

There are three different answers you might need when asking a question such as how to bet on college basketball.

• “I'm looking at Florida State -9.5 vs UNC and I have no idea what that means. Help."
• "I have a good idea of ​​who I want to bet on, but I don't know where to do it."
• "I understand how to bet on sports and I have a bookmaker, but I want to hone my handicap skills.”

Below we will answer all three and more.

How to bet on college basketball

What does this mean?

Let's take an example from Monday, February 3, 2020

Florida is a 9. 5 point favorite over North Carolina. PointsBet lists each type of bet from left to right - spread, amount, money line.

Florida State -9.5 ( spread over points): points spread is a great equalizer in sports betting. This is a bet on winning the game, adjusted for each team's ability.

Florida State has a -9.5 favorite over UNC, which means FSU must win by 10 points or more for you to win your bet if you backed the Seminoles. This minus sign indicates which the Soviet Union prefers.

If you bet UNC +9.5 you need the Tar Heels to lose by less than nine points or win the game outright to win your bet. The plus sign means Carolina is a loser.

Over/Under 144.5 (total): In addition to the points spread, the next most popular college basketball betting option is total, better known as over/under.

Here you simply bet on how many points the teams will combine to score.

Depending on the attacking and defensive performance, pace and other performance of each team, the betting market expects this game to score 144-145 points.

NC +380, FSU -500 (Moneyline) : The points spread is a great equalizer, but the money line values ​​the teams equally. Only a direct victory in the game and its price, respectively, matter.

If you think North Carolina can win this game right away, you will be paid $3.80 for each risk that Tar Heels were listed at +380 (because at the time they were much worse than in the former Soviet Union). A $10 bet will bring in $38 plus the original $10 back.

If you want to support the state of Florida just to win, you have to risk $5 for every dollar. So a $50 bet will net you $10 (plus your $50 back).

Click here to return to content.

Finding a place to bet

If you are located in one of the following states, you can legally bet online. In the first seven states listed, you have several options. Anywhere else you probably only have 1-2 options.

This is just a summary of what is available; in New Jersey you have over 15 options.

Online basketball betting

Sports and Fitness » Basketball is one of the most popular games that fans follow. Whether feminine or masculine, stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg, Charlize Theron and Snoop Dogg also love it. Only tall people are allowed to play basketball, but anyone, from young to old, can follow the game. Basketball betting is quite a popular hobby. And adults can still make money on their hobby. If you do not miss a single game, understand the rules, then you can easily bet online and win money. Watching your favorite game that brings in additional income, what could be better? Of course, when basketball first appeared, there was no talk of any stakes. It is now more than one online bookmaker ready to test your intuition or calculated prediction. And it all started like this. In 1891, college students of the Youth Christian Association were doing the same boring gymnastic exercises in their physical education classes. In order to somehow diversify the process of attracting children to sports, college teacher James Naismith came up with a new collective game. He hung two peach baskets in the gym and divided the students into two teams. Who threw more balls into the opponent's basket, he won. Today's basketball is very different from that college game. The last time the rules of the game were changed was in 2004. And it is through them that all the games go, for which we decide to bet online, or just watch on TV. Two teams of twelve, only handball, passing, interception - all these elements make basketball spectacular. This is a dynamic game. She is interesting to watch. What are the emotions on the faces of basketball players. They are focused, their goal is the ball and an accurate throw into the net. Some psychologists believe that this is one of the happiest sports, while mentioning the expression "jump for happiness." We actually jump up and down quite often when we hear good news. And basketball players are constantly jumping, and this has a good effect on their emotional state. This positive signal is also transmitted to the observers of the game. Along with adrenaline, thrown into the bloodstream in excitement for your favorite team. You used to have to get dressed, get out of the house and look for a bookmaker, which is not always located in a convenient location. The advent of the Internet has simplified this operation. Now you can bet on basketball online. And it will take you very little time. It is enough just to replenish your account in a way convenient for you, and start winning money. Such a service is offered, for example, by maxline.by. Online bookmaker is a great option to follow the progress of your favorite game. 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