The college basketball regular season is closing in on the home stretch as most major leagues have just a handful of games remaining before conference tournaments begin.
With that in mind, it’s a great time to examine the futures market and try to extract some value. All of the best betting apps are offering odds on the National Championship, Final Four and the NCAA Tournament bubble. By breaking down those odds and comparing them to public projection models, we can try to find where the value is in the betting markets.
An important note before we dive in: 1) All references to “expected value” are based on comparing projections from BartTorvik’s TourneyCast model to betting odds from a number of legal sports books.
College basketball futures bets for Feb. 21
Nebraska to miss the NCAA Tournament (+350 on bet365)
- Implied odds: 22.22%
- BartTorvik odds: 41.3%
- Expected value: $85.85 on a $100 wager
Nebraska is currently favored to make the NCAA Tournament, but the Huskers are still very much on the bubble. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Nebraska in the “Last 4 byes” section of his latest update. Nebraska is just 5-8 in Quad 1 games and has an eye-sore of a Quad 3 loss on its résumé as well (vs. Rutgers on Jan. 16). The Huskers have 2 Quad 1 games left during the regular season, starting with Michigan on Saturday. Barring a sweep, Nebraska is likely to be sweating on Selection Sunday — and its chances of missing the Big Dance appear to be much greater than the betting markets currently imply.
BYU to make the Final Four (+3500 on BetMGM)
- Implied odds: 2.78%
- BartTorvik odds: 4.5%
- Expected value: $62 on a $100 wager
This is a bit of a long-shot, but there appears to be some value on the Cougars to make the Final Four for the first time in program history. Even with Mark Pope now in Lexington, BYU still has an elite offense. The Cougars rank 13th in schedule-adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom. BYU is led by 6-foot-9 guard Egor Demin, who is widely-regarded as one of the most-skilled passers in the nation. Most recently, BYU smoked Kansas by 24 points in Provo. They’re 9th nationally in effective field goal percentage and take a lot of 3-pointers — that’s how you increase your variance in March, which is what we’re looking for with a long-shot Final Four future.
Illinois to make the Final Four (+1800 on bet365)
- Implied odds: 5.26%
- BartTorvik odds: 8.3%
- Expected value: $57.70 on a $100 wager
Illinois is in a bit of a rut at the moment, having lost back-to-back games and 7 of its last 12. The Illini are not contenders for the Big Ten regular season title, but that doesn’t mean they should be overlooked in March. Despite the stretch of poor play since Jan. 11, BartTorvik’s efficiency model grades the Illini as the 32nd-best team in the country over that span. That’s not great, but it’s also a disaster if that’s the low end of the spectrum. This would be a bet on Illinois playing its best ball in March. The defense needs to be better, but the upside of Kasparas Jakucionis means the Illini will have a shot in most matchups.
Louisville to make the Final Four (+2500 on bet365)
- Implied odds: 3.85%
- BartTorvik odds: 5.9%
- Expected value: $53.40 on a $100 wager
You won’t find many 1-year turnarounds better than what Pat Kelsey has pulled off with the Cardinals. Louisville closed last season as a fringe top-200 team in KenPom. Less than a year later, it has legitimate Final Four hopes. The Cardinals are top-30 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, per KenPom. They take a higher rate of 3-pointers than almost anybody and they have no clear weakness on the defensive side of the floor. It’s not crazy to think about this Louisville team winning a region. It’s a long-shot, yes, but one that carries plenty of expected value.
Missouri to make the Final Four (+900 on BetMGM)
- Implied odds: 10%
- BartTorvik odds: 14.7%
- Expected value: $47.00 on a $100 wager
Even after Mizzou’s massive win over Alabama, there’s still some value to be had in the betting markets on the Tigers. Mizzou is priced at +900 to make the Final Four at BetMGM while most other books are in the +650 range (or worse) so this opportunity may not be around for long. Missouri has already proven that it can beat elite teams with a trio of top-5 wins on the season. The Tigers are likely to be favored in every game until the SEC Tournament, so I expect their stock will only continue to grow over the next couple of weeks.
Note: There are a small handful of +EV opportunities not mentioned in this story because they were covered in previous iterations of this piece. Relative to the betting markets, BartTorvik’s TourneyCast model still shows a high expected value on Houston to win the National Championship, Purdue to make the Final Four, Texas Tech to make the Final Four and Wake Forest to miss the NCAA Tournament.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
