Betting Stuff: Buying, selling Week 18 college basketball trends

Several weeks ago, you could get plus value on a bet for Tennessee to earn a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. Today, Tennessee and Houston are the 2 favorites to join Auburn and Duke on the top seed line.

Last Saturday, the Volunteers (24-5, 11-5 SEC) stunned the sixth-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide (23-6, 12-4) at the buzzer on a deep triple from Jahmai Mashack. A crucial error with 3 seconds to play took away Alabama’s opportunity to win the game and gave Tennessee a chance to go baseline-to-baseline for a winner. Mashack pulled up from well beyond the 3-point line as time expired and rattled home a 3 to give UT its seventh win in 8 games.

During the recent run, the Vols have beaten a fifth-ranked Florida squad, a 15th-ranked Mizzou squad, and a seventh-ranked Texas A&M team on the road. Jordan Gainey came up big against A&M and he did again versus Alabama. The Vols are finding a groove and rounding into postseason form at the perfect time.

Or, did the result in Knoxville say more about the losing team?

For Alabama, the defeat was its third in the last 5 games. All of those have come since the NCAA Tournament selection committee revealed Alabama to be its second-ranked team in the early bracket preview. Now, the Tide are in danger of falling off the 1-line entirely.

That’s one of several trends to track this week.

Take: Alabama is in trouble

Once it got home from road trips to Fayetteville and Austin in early February, Alabama needed to lock in. On Feb. 15, the Crimson Tide played the first of 7 straight games against ranked opponents. Six of the 7 games have been or will be against teams that are in the KenPom top 12. Alabama was never going to get through this stretch unscathed, but with games still to play against Florida and Auburn in the jungle, Alabama has dropped 3 of its last 5. 

The Tide lost to Auburn by 9 at home, gave up 110 to Mizzou in a 12-point loss on the road, then lost by 3 on Saturday at Tennessee. The Vols got a buzzer-beating triple to silence Alabama after the Tide were called for a 5-second violation trying to inbound the basketball. 

Now, Alabama is +1100 to win the national championship at BetMGM and +240 to make the Final Four at FanDuel.  

The markets aren’t overreacting to the recent run of form from Alabama, and that’s not surprising. Even still, FanDuel’s price is a little more friendly than what Bart Torvik’s model projects. It gives Alabama a 23.4% chance to make the Final Four and a 5.5% chance to win the title. 

Alabama will likely have to make its tournament run as a 2-seed. My best guess is Tennessee and Houston grab the other top seeds after Auburn and Duke. But I don’t think anything has changed with this team. 

The Tide solved their turnover issue (if only briefly) against Auburn and still lost at home. They got 35 points from Mark Sears on the road and still lost by double-digits. They got beat on a heave by a great Tennessee team after a late brain fart. 

Nothing we’ve seen from Alabama over the last 2 weeks moves the needle. It’s not new information. The Tide are a high-variance team because of their style of play — all gas, no brakes, optimized offense, sagging defense. They’re going to have monster games where they route good teams (i.e., a 111-73 win over Mississippi State) and they’re going to lose to good teams. 

The thing you like to see with Alabama is that it hasn’t routinely played down to the opposition. The average KenPom ranking of Alabama’s 6 losses is 15.7. Alabama has consistently handled the sub-standard teams it has faced. 

And, if anything, Alabama’s offense has actually been better over this recent, treacherous stretch. The Tide have a raw offensive rating of 124.3 over their last 5 games. Across the entire season, Alabama has a raw 119.4 offensive rating. And Mark Sears, with 110 points and 17 made 3s over his last 4 appearances, is really starting to heat up. 

That could actually set the table for some value on Alabama in the SEC Tournament. Auburn might care more about a national title than a sweep. 

Alabama is a wild card in the NCAA Tournament, capable of running to the national semifinal and capable of flaming out in the Sweet 16. That was true 2 weeks ago and it remains true today. It’ll depend on the draw Nate Oats gets from the selection committee.

I don’t think there’s enough value at the current price to bet on Bama to make the Final Four. (Maybe that’ll change in the coming weeks.) But I also don’t believe the Tide are in any real trouble because they’ve lost games to great teams. The first week of the NCAA Tournament is going to feel like a breeze for some of the SEC’s elites compared to what they’ve been going through in league play.

Verdict: SELL

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Take: Texas A&M is in trouble

Texas A&M is a much different story. The Aggies can’t shoot. And that is starting to become a massive, massive problem. 

During A&M’s 5-game winning streak, the Aggies topped 75 points once. But because they were facing 4 of the SEC’s bottom-feeders during that stretch, they were able to get by on their rebounding prowess and defensive ability. 

The current 4-game losing streak has featured 3 of the league’s top teams and a wildly underrated offense. In the loss to Mississippi State, A&M was held below its season average on the offensive glass and committed 19 turnovers. In the loss to Tennessee, A&M was held below its season average on the offensive glass and committed 12 turnovers. In the loss to Florida, A&M was right at its season average on the offensive glass and committed 15 turnovers. 

Here’s what A&M’s offensive profile looks like heading into the final week of the regular season, via KenPom:

• 315th in effective field goal percentage (47.6%)
• 327th in 3-point percentage (30.6%)
• 279th in 2-point percentage (48.6%)
• 272nd in free throw percentage (69.4%)
• 338th in live-ball turnover rate (11.6%)
• 364th in block rate (14.5%)
• 1st in offensive rebounding rate (41.6%)

If a team can hold its own on the glass, it’ll beat A&M. The Aggies have one of the worst first-shot offenses in college basketball. And their go-to guards are starting to show some fatigue. 

Zhuric Phelps has shot better than 40% from the field in 2 of his last 11 games. Wade Taylor IV has done so twice since the calendar flipped to 2025. Last year’s SEC Tournament run was a product of Taylor getting hot, but his 3-pointer has been ice-cold since a 7-for-10 showing against South Carolina in early February. 

It’s very likely the losing streak runs to 5 when A&M hosts Auburn on Tuesday. Is a road game against LSU to close out the regular season enough of a springboard to jumpstart Taylor or Phelps? Perhaps. Microwave scorers are just that. 

But A&M, to me, feels like a team with a very clear ceiling. This group can make the Sweet 16, absolutely. But it just doesn’t have enough good in its offense to beat the teams it’ll likely see from that point on. 

Since beating Texas Tech and Purdue in early December, A&M is 1-4 against KenPom top 20 teams. 

Verdict: BUY

Take: Arkansas blew it at South Carolina

Does Arkansas look like a Tournament team? Watching the Razorbacks last Saturday, that answer was a definitive no. 

Arkansas had just 3 points after more than 10 minutes of play in the first half against South Carolina. It missed 16 of its first 17 shot attempts and went to the break trailing 32-14, mustering the fewest points a John Calipari-coached team had ever scored in a first half. South Carolina then opened the second half on a 15-4 run to stretch the lead and led by as many as 35 points.

Arkansas closed the game shooting just 29% from the field and 14% from 3. The Razorbacks had nearly as many turnovers (13) as they did made baskets (15).

After the game, Calipari said Arkansas laid a dud, but there was a reasonable justification for it…

“We’re undermanned,” the head coach said. “Adou Thiero and Boogie Fland were out. No one wants to hear that, but it makes it so we can’t have 3 out of our 7 play poorly. … I can’t make any trades. I can’t pick up anybody on the wire. This is who it is. How do we make this work?”

Fland isn’t coming back. Thiero, who suffered a back injury in the Mizzou game and didn’t travel with the team to the South Carolina game, might be on the shelf for an extended period.

Minus Thiero, the team’s leading scorer, Arkansas was lost on the offensive end of the floor against South Carolina. DJ Wagner went 2-for-10 from the field. Johnell Davis went 3-for-9 overall and 1-for-5 from deep. Only 2 Arkansas players broke double-digits — Karter Knox (11) and Jonas Aidoo (10).

Davis has run hot and cold all season, only sporadically looking like the player who led the charge at FAU. Wagner has an effective field goal percentage of 39.9% against SEC opponents this season. It doesn’t look good. And Calipari’s mannerisms after some of the recent losses just don’t inspire a ton of confidence.

This time 2 weeks ago, Arkansas was +104 to get into the NCAA Tournament at FanDuel. Today, the Razorbacks are -114. 

This time last week, Bart Torvik gave the Razorbacks a 63.8% chance to make the Tournament. Today, that number stands at just 43.3%. I wrote in this space last week that, “If the Razorbacks follow up the win over Mizzou with a loss to Texas or South Carolina, we’re right back where we were prior to the weekend.”

And not only did the Razorbacks follow up the Mizzou upset with a loss, they followed up the Mizzou upset by getting their tails whipped up and down the court by a team that had only won 1 prior league game.

It was the worst possible outcome. A loss is a loss. But some feel different than others. Getting dog-walked by the worst team in the SEC should be a death knell for the Razorbacks’ tournament hopes. 

Last week, I suggested backing the Razorbacks to miss the NCAA Tournament at +200 at bet365. Even if you missed that number, I still think it’s worth jumping on the -114 price at FanDuel. 

Verdict: BUY