I do love CBB - GO VCU Rams - class of 87'. What are the key indicators in a CBB Game - some would say free thows, defense, points scored etc. I have broken in out into 5 things - High Assists, low turnovers, great defense, rank and schedule strength. The other thing to remember is - home and away means something - so you need to use data that breaks it out into home and away. Websites you need to become familiar with - Statfox.com, Sagarin, donbest.com . Here is a step by step:
1. Go to Donbest .com and get the opening lines - use them b/c injuries, issues, home away, public perception, is all in that opening line. If there is a big shift maybe something is up but early on in the season line moves - don't get too worried.
2. Print the lines out.
3. Go to Stat fox and click on ncaab, look at assists and the turnover columns for home teams. What your trying to do is figure out if the home team has a + or - assist to turnover ratio - for example - 15 assists 12 turnovers is +.
4. Do the same for Away teams - simply writing down + or -.
5. Now click on Defense statistics - all we want to do is find out what each team allows as a shooting percentage on defense 3rd column over - write that down. for both home and away - don't use all - use home and away - if it is a tournament - use away stats.
6. Go to google and look up sagarin - he is associated with usa today - write down his rank and his schedule strength number.
7. So looking at the game tonite ( had to use Last years data - it is still relevant but don't go crazy - wait a week as more current data becomes available)
Liberty - 195 259 41%
Tex A&M (o.line 18.5 pts) + 44 65 40%
8. What we have here is Tex A&M opened up as a 18.5 favorite and had a positive assist to turnover ratio with a sagrin rank of 44 and a sked strenght of 65 and allowed their oppenets to shoot 40% when at home. Liberty on the road did the above.
Simply looking at this game - Tex am should wipe them up - hold up - don't click on tex am so fast. continue reading.
9. Labeling the team - or + allows you to categorize the teams into 4 categories either - + ; - - ; + -; + +
10. I record things in a spreadsheet and my spreadsheet would look like this.
- A WS WS WD
+ B 18.5 BS BS BD
BS = Better Sagarin WS = Worst sasgrin BD = Better defense WD = worst defense
11. Then based on the categorical situation and the opening line you can let history indicate for a particular situation what team to take. What that means is - you have to record this information and record the scores and what occurred. Yes it is a pain but worth it.
12. So for example - based on this situation -/+ with the home team being favored by 18.5 pts history has shown that the away team is a good bet - thus take liberty. Once again, beginning of the season and using last years data - go easy.
13. If you have a situation where things are tied - number of assists or shooting percentage defense - avoid the game - it's hard to determine a spread winner - thus avoid.
14. I like Lehigh in the f/half as well only b/c history has indicated they should cover... like teams before them.
Any questions let me know. I have data since 2006 but recently began putting it in a spreadsheet - i suggest you do the same.
Good luck all
TB
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