Took this from some e-mail I got. Fezzick
It was the wildest, underdog-laden ncaa tournament of all time, right?
Not exactly. At least not if you consider pointspread results to be your guide.
With only the three Final Four games left to play, if you had bet the underdog in every single game, you’d be a 32-28-1 against the spread. The $110/$100 bettor who bet on the dog in every game would be up the princely sum of $120.
At first glance, large favorites did well, as teams laying 7.5-points or more are 12-9 against the spread.
But double digit favorites were only 6-8 to the spread, which means that 7.5 to 9.5 point chalk was the profit center of the larger favorites, with a 6-1 mark against the spread.
Teams favored by 4.5 to 7 points were a middling 9-7-1 against the pointspread.
If you’re following along closely, you see that we’re left with the competitively priced games of 4-points and less. In those games that saw no strong favorite, favorites were only 7-16 to the pointspread. It is worth noting that there were a number of games that went from pick to a small favorite or one team a slight favorite to the other team being a slight favorite. The closing line was used for the purposes of our analysis.
Dog players actually would have done better if they played those 23 small dogs on the money line, as of the 16 pointspread winners, 15 of them won straight up (San Diego State’s narrow loss in their pointspread cover against Tennessee was the lone exception).
It’s fun to review this, but be careful about expecting it to carry on going forward. The previous couple of tournments had been pretty chalky, so a knee-jerk dog player wouldn’t have done all that well. And if the tournament is changed to a 96-team affair next year, pointspread data from the 26 years of 64-team tournaments will have little value.
But the fact that pointspread underdogs won 15 of the 23 games lined from 1 to 4 is worth remembering, showing that this was a tournament in which the marketplace had a hard time ascertaining who was the superior team in games that looked to be competitive.
It was the wildest, underdog-laden ncaa tournament of all time, right?
Not exactly. At least not if you consider pointspread results to be your guide.
With only the three Final Four games left to play, if you had bet the underdog in every single game, you’d be a 32-28-1 against the spread. The $110/$100 bettor who bet on the dog in every game would be up the princely sum of $120.
At first glance, large favorites did well, as teams laying 7.5-points or more are 12-9 against the spread.
But double digit favorites were only 6-8 to the spread, which means that 7.5 to 9.5 point chalk was the profit center of the larger favorites, with a 6-1 mark against the spread.
Teams favored by 4.5 to 7 points were a middling 9-7-1 against the pointspread.
If you’re following along closely, you see that we’re left with the competitively priced games of 4-points and less. In those games that saw no strong favorite, favorites were only 7-16 to the pointspread. It is worth noting that there were a number of games that went from pick to a small favorite or one team a slight favorite to the other team being a slight favorite. The closing line was used for the purposes of our analysis.
Dog players actually would have done better if they played those 23 small dogs on the money line, as of the 16 pointspread winners, 15 of them won straight up (San Diego State’s narrow loss in their pointspread cover against Tennessee was the lone exception).
It’s fun to review this, but be careful about expecting it to carry on going forward. The previous couple of tournments had been pretty chalky, so a knee-jerk dog player wouldn’t have done all that well. And if the tournament is changed to a 96-team affair next year, pointspread data from the 26 years of 64-team tournaments will have little value.
But the fact that pointspread underdogs won 15 of the 23 games lined from 1 to 4 is worth remembering, showing that this was a tournament in which the marketplace had a hard time ascertaining who was the superior team in games that looked to be competitive.
