OK, everybody drop what you’re doing, put your brackets away, and take a deep breath. After a weekend in which underdogs across the country looked like 20/1 Derby Lane greyhounds running the race of their lives, it’s time to clear our heads and get back to basics. Let’s face it when a team like Syracuse can be an underdog in four straight games on four straight days and win them all for a conference crown, we all need to take a break. Like a car that has just made a cross-country trip, we need to tune up.
Just like the NHL MLB and of course the NFL, the NCAA basketball tournament is a brand new season. The slate is clean and all previous sins are forgiven. February’s world’s best have to show up to the first round of regionals this weekend as focused as the team that’s on a dream run and doesn’t have a scholarship player. Last year’s national runner-up Illinois faces an Air Force team that didn’t even watch the selection program because they thought they had no chance of getting an invite. Well, Thursday at 4:25 p.m. PST, the Falcons will give a call in San Diego against the Illini and get 8 points of support.
The NCAA tournament has gotten so big that it hits even experienced handicappers like a gale-force gust of wind. In recent years, we have seen unknowns make their way into the tournament and the rumor mill went through everyone’s media on day one. I was there last year when Vermont, the America East representative, upset Syracuse in the first round. Not even the small section wearing the yellow and green Catamounts believed it. Then, less than two hours later, people were breaking their pencils when Bucknell brought in the town of Lawrence Ka. to stop when the Bison defeated the Jayhawks. Folks, 95% of the betting public couldn’t even tell you where Bucknell is, never mind if they can win a tournament game. You could fit the Langone Recreation Center in Lewisburg Pa. INSIDE the home of Phog Allen Field, the home of the Jayhawk Hoops. With surprises like these happening so recently that pain still lingers in people’s guts, fans in Bracketland are now looking to find the next world stage and want to be a part of it. That’s not what it was about.
Anyone reading this article is not interested in fairytale dreams and Cinderella fantasies. They were handicappers looking at lines and finding weaknesses and advantages that we can pounce on and collect winning tickets. If your Aunt Margaret brings home a bracket from her pool at work and asks you to help her fill it, that’s great entertainment, but in the real world of Big Boy, game brackets have absolutely nothing to do with winning. money in a casino in Las Vegas.
What makes this tournament such a puzzle is that all the games are played on neutral courts. In the inexact science of picking winners, that’s the difference between enjoying surf-n-turf or redeeming Big Mac coupons.
On February 25, Kansas headed to Texas on a 10-game winning streak to play the Longhorns in an ESPN game on Saturday night. Texas on their home court was a 6-point favorite. That night, Kansas could have been getting 16 points and it wouldn’t have mattered. The Jayhawks looked like a deer looking at the headlights in the second half and they were eliminated at 25, it was a complete mismatch. Last Sunday in the Big 12 final, the two teams met again on a neutral track. Kansas won by 12.
Another difference that makes this tournament format unique is the sheer amount of travel involved. TV crews in the big conferences have deep pockets and don’t think twice about writing checks for airfare and hotel costs during the regular season. For the lucky ones the tournament is nothing new. For others it is a new experience in itself. The Penn Quakers dominated the Ivy League by riding buses to and from games and rarely play weekend games because it interferes with their academic schedules. His longest road trip since Christmas break was a 360-mile drive to play at Dartmouth. This week they will travel more than 1,500 miles to play in Texas in another time zone.
As you review the lines for Thursday and Friday, remember that every team is an away team. Everything is the same from the time the teams get off the plane until the National Anthem is played. We’re betting on pure basketball complete with matchmaking zones and game plans from here on out.
Don’t get caught up in all the excitement CBS will bring you as they go from game to game. Betting all games and the halftime line is the equivalent of betting on suicide: you will bury yourself. Relax, enjoy the games and above all, bet with confidence. Know what games you like and when you get a good line of fire. For the record, tell Aunt Maggie that 14 Winthrop will give 2 Tennessee all she can handle.
