Five NCAA Tournament pitfalls for bettors to avoid

Five NCAA Tournament pitfalls for bettors to avoid

It’s never too early in the season to start looking forward to the annual NCAA Tournament, which is the best time of the year for college basketball bettors. However, if handicappers aren’t careful, it can be a very expensive time of year as well.
 
The reason, is unlike the regular college basketball season, the NCAA Tournament brings tighter lines as the betting public action is heavier. With those lines, even the best college basketball handicappers can sometimes easily find themselves falling into some tempting traps that present themselves ever year at this time.
 
So, we have put together a list of  five of the biggest mistakes college basketball bettors make at tournament time, and what they can do to avoid them.
First, never bet with emotion.  It’s called March Madness for a good reason, and bettors like non-bettors are likely basketball fans first, making them just as susceptible to get caught up in the excitement and the emotion of the tournament.
 
So, bettors need to remember to keep their emotions in check, making optimal decisions on the best teams, not necessarily their favorites, or the team that is garnering a lot of media attention because it is doing the unimaginable early in the opening rounds.
 
Next, college basketball handicappers need to forget about the big names, and really look at the underdogs, especially in the first two rounds. It’s tempting to pick the big name team over the upstart, but there is good value on the underdogs in NCAA Tournament betting.
With that handicappers need to pay attention to seeds, careful not pick teams or fill out their bracket simply selecting the higher seeds to beat the lower seeds just because of their seeding alone.
 
Every year, the college basketball world, and sometimes a No. 5 seed is stunned by a No. 12 seed in the first round, giving many reasons why the seeds aren’t always an accurate assessment of team strength. While seeds are one tool sports handicappers can use to assess teams, they are a long way from being something that should be relied on solely.
 
Another thing bettors often ignore is where a particular game is being played.
 
While,  NCAA Tournament games are all in theory played at neutral sites, some sites are obviously far more neutral than others, while others can cater to one team or other.
 
If a game is between a pair of teams that have national presences, it really may not matter. But if one team has more national popularity, there could be a huge crowd bias, which can have a big effect on the outcome of the basketball game.
 
Finally, it seems obvious, but during March Madness handicappers often forget the fact that it doesn’t matter which team is more talented or better. Often times even the weakest teams do the most important things on the court, which  means, their opponent, not matter how good, needs to be ready. Because tournament teams have often not played each other during the regular season. A far less talented college basketball team can win a game if they are hard for their opponent to match up to.
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