How to Bet on College Basketball?
College basketball is a favorite among sports fans. Whether you like college sports or if you want to follow the future NBA stars, college hoops are a must-watch. With hundreds of teams and games to follow every season, it also means lots of betting opportunities.
If you want to get into college basketball betting but don’t know how to get started, then you’ve come to the right place. We will gladly lend you a helping hand to understand the ins and outs of how to bet on college basketball, how NCAAB betting lines work, the different markets, and everything else you need.
Understanding College Basketball
The first-ever college basketball teams were organized between 1893 and 1895. By the early 1900s, college basketball had already become popular across the US. In 1939, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) organized its first national championship.
Initially, the NCAA tournament featured a mere eight teams, but the field quickly expanded over the next decades. In 1985, the Division I playoffs expanded to the current 64-team format. Then, in 2011, the tournament added a preliminary round consisting of eight teams to determine the last four spots, effectively expanding the number of participants to 68. The NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament is also known as March Madness.
College basketball has three divisions, although most operators only take bets on Division I games. There are 32 Division I conferences, and the champions automatically qualify for March Madness. The remaining 36 spots are determined by a selection committee, which ranks the teams according to a number of criteria. Before the start of the conference play, teams organize smaller out-of-conference tournaments, which count towards their overall record but have no influence on their respective conference standings.Â
College Basketball Betting Explained
You can bet on all Division I NCAAB games, right from the start of the season. Sportsbooks offer college basketball betting lines on all games, including early season matches. Of course, there is also March Madness, which naturally draws the most attention from bettors.
Bookmakers offer a variety of college basketball betting markets as well. Wagering on different markets is always a good strategy for punters, allowing them to find better college basketball betting lines.
College Basketball Betting Tips
| Explore all betting markets available. Even if you don’t like the moneyline odds, you can always find favorable college basketball betting lines with high-paying odds in different markets. Keep your options as open and varied as possible, which will naturally improve your chances of bigger payouts. | Compare the odds between different sportsbooks. For the most part, operators will have very close odds and lines. But that’s not always the case. Some bookmakers may disagree on the favorite or the spread for a game, and that opens many other possibilities for bettors. | There are many college basketball point systems available online. KenPom rantings and Sagarin ratings are two of the most famous. These point systems are frequently used by bettors, especially for point-spread bets. You can also look for betting tips online. |
College Basketball Betting Examples
| Here is an example using the KenPom system for a college basketball spread bet: Kentucky (+29.77 AdjEM) is the early season favorite, followed by Texas (+28.4). If the Wildcats and Longhorns played in the 2023 March Madness, then Kentucky would be a 1.37-point favorite for the match. | The opening odds for the national championship have Gonzaga as the early favorite, followed by North Carolina and Houston. The Bulldogs are listed at +900, paying $900 for every $100 bet. Both the Tar Heels and Cougars are listed at +1000, paying $1,000 for every $100 bet. | North Carolina is also the early favorite to win the ACC title. The Tar Heels are listed at +130 for the opening odds, which means that a $100 bet will pay $130 if North Carolina wins the ACC title at the end of the regular season. |
Pros vs Cons of College Basketball Betting
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Summary
College basketball betting is one of the best options available in college sports. The NCAA Division I tournament is one of the top college sports events of the year. March Madness draws a lot of attention from bookmakers too, which means more betting markets are available. There are 32 conferences and 352 teams in Division I, and that guarantees hundreds of games to wager on over the course of the season. Keeping up with all the action is difficult, but there are tools like points systems and betting tips to help you out. Of course, you can always bet on NBA, too. Just check out our How To Bet on NBA? section for great extra info.
