It's all about adjusting from year to year, just like any other sport. It's been well-documented that we've fared well over the years in College Basketball, especially when Conference Play starts. That's where my adjustments need to be made, between now and early January. Historically, we've bet underdogs, and as everyone knows, early on there are some huge ones. Up until a couple of years ago, you could ride most of them to the window as the big name teams mail in the 2H. However, the last two years that hasn't been the case. The books have made adjustments, offering more enticing lines, but they better teams just seemed to play for 40 minutes and cover those -20 lines with relative ease. So, a great deal more work needs to be done on my part to avoid digging the early hole we've had to dig out of. That's the bad news.
The good news is that we've always managed to get white-hot once January starts, having 18-3 and 21-2 runs the last two years. And several years back we went for over 70 marbles, hitting almost 70% for three months and winning a CBB Handicapping Championship.
It's all about doing the work, just like every other day of the week. There are numerous coaching changes (we're on them) as well as transfers that matter (we're on them) and players whose status remains unclear right up until the first game (we're on them).
One thing I do plan on changing is money lines. Not unlike most other sports, when the underdog covers, unless it's a huge dog, they typically win outright. So, we'll play more ML's for sure.
It's also important to know which coaches/teams will foul until the bitter end, because that can ruin a good total or what could have been an easy cover. Because we have a database of HOW we lost games in the past, we learn from that, too. We're not going to be shy, and as we do in CFB we'll more than likely be giving out thoughts in all the games, especially on the huge Wednesday and Saturday cards.
So, nothing revolutionary, but status quo doesn't work over time, and knowing that is 90% of the solution.
Our season-long packages can be found here and as many of you already know, we're around via twitter or on the forums, or via any other medium, to answer specific questions most every day of the week. Thanks as always, and good luck this season.