You want to beat the college basketball markets. With March Madness approaching, you crave any edge that makes the best month of the year even better.

In the book Interception – The Secrets of Modern Sports Betting, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow discuss the sure fire way to beat a market: develop a full blown model that accounts for every significant aspect of a sport.

However, you probably don’t have time for that. You can leave it to me to do this for the NFL, but it doesn’t seem like a good use of time for college basketball.

What then?

Miller and Davidow have another solution in college basketball based on their years of experience. They created Deck Prism, a company that priced in game markets for sports books. Pinnacle was a customer.

They suggest betting in game markets for college basketball. Even as the creators of critical software, they admit an inability to account for all the teams and players.

One of the core ideas in Interception is finding situations that the math models do not account for. In college basketball, this can happen due to injuries or foul trouble.

For example, if Purdue behemoth Zach Edey gets two fouls in the first half, bet the spread on the other team. The math probably assumes he will get an average amount of playing time the remainder of the game.

For a well known player like Edey, the sports book might make the correct in-game adjustment. If it’s not the math model, then a trader makes an adjustment by hand. 

However, I doubt these models account for elite defensive players. It’s too hard to quantify, as steals and blocks do not do justice to the best defenders.

To identify elite defensive players, I consult the 2024 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year watchlist. A few players stand out:

• Dajuan Harris, Kansas. The defending Big 12 defensive player of the year uses his quickness to alter games. While he has made 40.7% of his threes at one point this season, Harris has a minor role on offense, more so when Kevin McCullar plays. If he misses significant time, look to bet the in-game over.
• Jamal Shead, Houston. The point guard also plays a huge role on offense, and Houston excels at every position on defense. Look to bet the spread if Shead is out.
• Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton. The Bluejays excel at two point field goal defense, and Kalkbrenner’s shot blocking plays a big role. If he is in foul trouble, look towards the over, as he has less of an impact on offense.

Watching games to identify elite defenders also seems like a route to profitable in play college basketball bets.

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter on Thursday, March 7, 2024. This newsletter is a free service that strives to be:

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