Handicapping the college basketball post season takes on a few different approaches from just picking the winners in the regular season…

The conference tournaments are usually all played at one venue and so one team will have the advantage of the home court, otherwise all games must be considered the same as road games. The conference tourny’s will sometimes be the deciding factor for teams getting into the big dance. Although many conferences have automatic bids that go to the winner of the tourny, some will still be vying for an “at-large” bid or a higher seeding, so it is important to take these situations into consideration when handicapping…

Home Sweet Home…The NCAA tourny is set up in regions and although no teams (rarely) will be playing on their home court, you will find that some teams will have a geographical edge as they will draw more hometown fans for their games the closer to the location of the tourny venue to their school location. Otherwise, all games are to be considered road games.

This being said, when handicapping the tourny, you will want to put more weight on teams that have shown good road records both SU and ATS during the regular season.

Been There, Done That….Watch for matchups between the teams that have players and coaches that have prior NCAA tourny experience going against teams with players that are making their first appearance. The experience of handling the hype of the tourny is a big factor when handicapping these games.

Were Just Glad To Be Here…. There will always be entries in the tourny that are surprised that they are even playing in the tourny. These teams many times will be satisfied for just being there and consider the entry as the highlight of the season and really don’t have their sites set on going past the first round. These are teams that should be avoided when handicapping..

Playing With The Big Boys….Schedule strength and conference strength must always be considered. Although the linesmakers usually make their lines taking this factor into consideration, many times you can catch a bad line based on one team playing in a much weaker conference or a much easier schedule than their opponents..Many power ratings on based on the overall season performance and don’t make the proper compensation. (more to come in upcoming posts)

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