College basketball is a great sport to bet on. There are a lot of games to wager on, plenty of information online, and the lines are pretty early to be published. If you’re interested in betting on college basketball, there’s a lot of money you can win and a lot of tips and strategies that you can use to increase your winnings.
However, there are also some things you need to be wary about. As bettors, mistakes are unavoidable, and some of these mistakes can cost you a lot of money. To avoid them, you need to learn about them, and that’s what we are here for today. Here are some common mistakes you need to avoid in college betting.
Not Looking at the Schedule
The teams’ schedule doesn’t only let us know when they will play but also lets us determine how exhausted they will be in their next game. For some people, this is a trivial matter since this is entirely normal. However, they fail to understand that players aren’t superheroes, as they still need to rest to perform at their peak.
In a typical team schedule, there will be a lot of cross-country traveling, multiple days of matches in a row, and very far and few between breaks, especially in the middle of the season. With too much fatigue, it’s inevitable for them to have a game or two that they seem too tired to play.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should fade them on their upcoming game, as there is a lot that you can do with this information, like determining if they can cover the spread, gauging if the game will be over or under, etc.
Ignoring Injuries
Unlike the NBA, college basketball injuries don’t get much coverage. However, this doesn’t mean that you should ignore them. On the contrary, injuries also play a huge role in college basketball since they can impact a team’s play in the game they have a player missing.
Usually, an injury determines the value of the team as it will affect the lines of that matchup. So what should you do? First, before you place your bets in FanDuel, you should wait after all of the injury news is reported. This way, if an injury pops up on a particular game, you can adjust your bets according to the now-shifting value of the lines.
Not Checking Paint Control
Basketball strategies have changed over the years, and nowadays, teams are starting to lean more toward shooting three points to overcome the disadvantage in the paint. That said, like the NBA, college basketball teams with big men often have more control of the paint in the game. Of course, teams with more control of the paint always have more control of the rebound.
With a significant differential in rebounding between the teams, you can often see which team is more dominant in scoring. But why is this important? People often go for teams with fancier shooting capabilities, especially a team with more emphasis on three points; what they don’t know, though, is that the team with complete control of the paint often scores just as much as the team with the three-pointers.
And often, the team that has more control of the paint has more control of the game. So, you know what they say, the one who has control of the rebound often wins the game.
Not Fading the Public Often
Sportsbooks understand that sharp bettors will always bet on value, so they will be betting on the team with more chance of covering their spread. In addition, sharp sports bettors don’t care how famous a team is. That said, when a sportsbook sees that the public is betting heavily on the favorites, but there are very few bets on the underdog, they tend to shift the lines to entice more people to bet on the underdog.
This often happens in NCAAB betting that involves big teams in college basketball. That said, in this situation, you should see if the underdog line has value or not. If you see that the public is betting heavily on the favorite, you should wait for the sportsbook to shift their lines, and when they do, you should bet on the underdog.
It would help if you moved fast, however, since once there are enough bets on the underdog, there’s a big chance that the line will shift towards the favorites again since there’s also a chance that people will then start betting heavily on the underdogs. So, in short, bide your time and wait for the best opportunity to bet.
Final Words
These mistakes are common, but you should not be complacent in avoiding them, as each can grant you significant losses. Learn how to avoid these mistakes, and you’ll be a much sharper bettor in the future. Also, if you don’t know much about the game itself, this is an excellent opportunity to learn how to bet on it and play it.
