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Planting the seeds

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  • Planting the seeds

    Wherein I explain why you should take Gonzaga and UConn to cover the spread and Xavier, Memphis, Vanderbilt, and Boston College on the money line to win straight up.

    I don't have to host a show on Home & Garden TV to tell you how to plant seeds. On the contrary -- I'll just let the facts tell you what to do in the garden of the NCAA Tournament.

    I've dug up the following. Since 1998, #2 and #3 seeds are 21-23-1 ATS in the second round since 1998. No advantage there, obviously. But consider -- the ATS losers are just 2-21 straight up! That's right. If you are a #2 or #3 seed and you don't cover in the second round of the tournament, it's because you lost the game.

    Number of #2 & #3 seeds who lost SU in the second round each year ...
    2003: 3 of 8
    2002: 3 of 8
    2001: 3 of 7
    2000: 6 of 8
    1999: 4 of 7
    1998: 2 of 7
    TOTAL: 21 of 45 (46.6%)

    Based on these figures, you have a 46.6% random chance the last six tournaments of picking a second round underdog to beat a #2 or #3 seed straight up. Heck, flip a coin and you're almost breaking even.
    But what's this all mean? After all, we can put the beans in the ground but can we make them grow? Yes we can, especially by concentrating on MONEY LINES! A 46.6% built-in chance is just the foundation. Imagine what we could do with a hoe and a spade and other handicapping tools.
    This year, we've got eight 2/3 games, as all the seeds advanced. Here's how they look:

    SATURDAY
    #2 Gonzaga (-7½/-360) vs. Nevada (+7½/+300)
    #2 UConn (-10/-600) vs. DePaul (+10/+450)
    #3 Texas (Pick/-110) vs. North Carolina (Pick/-110)

    SUNDAY
    #2 Mississippi St. (-4½/-210) vs. Xavier (+4½/+175)
    #2 Oklahoma State (-6/-255) vs. Memphis (+6/+215)
    #3 N.C. State (-3½/-165) vs. Vanderbilt (+3½/+145)
    #3 Georgia Tech (-5½/-245) vs Boston College (+5½/+205)
    #3 Pitt (+2/+115) vs. Wisconsin (-2/-135)

    This year, we've got two seeds who aren't favored, which is a rarity. In the previous six years, only three of the 45 #2 and #3 seeds were not favored. (All three were #3 seeds getting two or less points; two of them lost.) So we'll weed the Pitt and Texas games from our handicapping garden.

    That leaves us with six games. Four feature #2 seeds and two feature #3 seeds. There's no seed correlation to losing over the past six years. Eleven #2s and 10 #3s have been weeded. However, there is a correlation between the point spread and winning. The teams that covered were favored by an average of 9.31 ppg, while the teams that lost straight up were favored by an average of 5.15 ppg.

    So we'll fertilize the group of smaller favorites. Gonzaga and UConn -- you're our cash crops. We're taking both of you to win and cover.

    The rest, we're sowing a bunch of seeds and hoping to get some nice growth out of a few of them. Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, North Carolina State, and Georgia Tech, we're going against all of you on the money line. If we go just 50/50, we reap a nice return.

    So there's The Garden of Round 2. To recap: Gonzaga (-7½), UConn (-10), Xavier (+175), Memphis (+215), Vanderbilt (+145), and Boston College (+205).

    The rest are weeds.
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