So we sit at 12-4 @ +5.86 units doing 10 point-ish teasers. I know teasers are risky and often fool's play, but I have been successful, specifically in college basketball. I attribute the success to doing my due diligence and diving a little further into the stats than most. And as you can probably tell from the title, today's post will be about adding points to the top seeds. Now we obviously don't know the spreads for Alabama and Purdue at this point but given the fact that both Kansas and Houston's spreads are a little over 20, lets just assume that to be the case for the other 2. I went all the way back to the 2010 tournament when looking at the 1's, that's the last 12 tournaments played. Obviously, if you are a CBB fan you know the story of Virginia losing to UMBC and becoming the only #1 seed to lose against a 16 seed, and by 20 nonetheless. Let's just assume that was a one in 1 in 34 year occurrence, which as of now that is the case. But just to ease your mind a little more on the likelihood of a team favored by 20 points losing, since 2006, 1417 games have had a spread of 20+ points or more. In those games the team favored by 20+ is 1401-16 (98.87% win %).
So what did I figure out in looking at the data, in the 47 wins by the 1 seed since 2010:
19 were by 25 or more (40%)
27 were by 20 or more (57%)
37 were by 15 or more (79%)
and... 43 were by 10 or more (91%)
Well assuming that we tease down to 10, this already is looking pretty good at a 91% hit rate over the last 47 wins. But in the 4 instances where the team didn't win by 10 or more what is noticeable? Here are the games:
2014 Arizona 68- Weber St. 59 (Line: Arizona -20.5, O/U 126.5)
2013 Gonzaga 64- Southern 58 (Line: Gonzaga -22.5, O/U 127)
2013 Kansas 64- Western Kentucky 57 (Line: Kansas -20.5, O/U 132)
2012 Syracuse 72- UNC Asheville 65 (Line: Syracuse -15.5, O/U 147.5)
Well the first thing of note is that the spreads are pretty close to what we are seeing today. These were also low projected totals with the exception of the Syracuse game. Makes sense when expecting a team to cover 20 in a game with a low total. This should be noted that this fits the mold of Houston and maybe Purdue. Also, only one of these scored above 70 points. In 41 of the 47 wins, the #1 seed scored 70+. But why hasn't this happened since 2014? What changed? THE SHOT CLOCK.
Since the shot clock change the #1 seeds, in their 27 wins, haven't won by less than 14 with an average winning margin of 26. The average winning margin from 2010 to 2014 was just 19. My theory is that with the additional possessions the 30-second shot clock introduced, there are more opportunities for the better team to execute. Sure both teams in theory will get more possessions but odds are the much better team will get more and will do more with them. In most cases, I would also assume that the #1 seeds are much better at rebounding so they most likely will get more additional possessions than the #16 seed. If you would've played this parlay assuming 20 point spreads and teased down to 10, you would've hit 6 out of the last 7 tournaments when the 1's play the 16's, with the year Virginia lost being the only instance that would've prevented you from going 7-0.
Houston may be the one team that would give me any sort of concern but I still think -10 should be an easy cover for them against a lowly Northern Kentucky team.
Kansas -9.5 (-555) vs Howard
Houston -8.5 (-555) vs Northern Kentucky
Assuming we can get the other two below -10 at -555, the odds for this would be -106.
Boilermakers 2-7 ATS at -14.5 or higher, 13-21 overall. They have a knack of winning but not finishing it seems. Although, teasing Purdue's spreads of -14 or higher covers 8 of the nine with the last being a push. 
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