College Basketball: The mythical Top 25 polls: Unranked favorites vs. Ranked underdogs
Throughout the college basketball season, there are countless times when an unranked team plays a ranked opponent (probably every night). But every so often, you’ll stumble upon one of those unranked teams favored over the ranked team they’re playing. But why is this? Shouldn’t a ranked team usually beat an unranked team? Why would a team be ranked in the top 25 but not be expected to beat a team outside of the top 25? Surely something must be fishy. You would think so, and that’s why Vegas sometimes throws curveballs and seemingly favors the ‘wrong team’.
The fact of the matter is that both Top 25 polls don’t accurately depict who the best teams in the country are. They are based a lot on perception of programs and success from previous seasons. Every so often a Cornell or Northern Iowa will sneak into a poll because of a long winning streak, but the polls tend to be dominated by BCS conference teams. The inability of neither Top 25 to rank the best teams in the country actually gives an informed sports bettor an advantage a few times per season.
We all know that Vegas bases lines not on what they think the outcome of the game will be, but on what they feel the public’s perception of the game is and what line they can get the best betting balance on. Vegas knows that if they make a ranked team, who they think has a reasonable chance to lose (most likely on the road), an underdog, that the public will be all over them. Take for example when Duke was at Maryland this year. Maryland was favored by 1 and your average sports bettor looks at the line, begins to drool over a top 10 Duke team GETTING points against Maryland, and places the bet solely based on the perception that a top 10 team won’t lose to an unranked opponent (getting the point even makes for a juicy bonus). And why wouldn’t they? Duke is a perennial powerhouse and doesn’t seem to ever lose more than a few games a year. But what happened when they were underdogs to Maryland? Duke went into a hostile Turtle land environment, got beat by Greivis Vazquez and the crowd, and the informed sports bettor who put his money on Maryland was rewarded for going against the perception of the top 25.
My point isn’t that every single time an unranked team is favored over a ranked team that they win or cover, but it sure is an interesting thing to look further into before putting square money on the ranked team. A few factors to consider when you wake up in the morning and are shocked to see a ranked team as an underdog to an unranked team…
1. Is the unranked team at home? This is most likely the case and is normally a school with a big, but underrated, home court advantage ( i.e. MVC, A-10, MWC, WCC, and WAC schools, plus bottom of the barrel BCS conference schools with the potential to draw big crowds for big name games)
2. Is the ranked team a big name school that Vegas knows will draw action from the public purely based on their name?
3. Did the line open with the ranked team as a small favorite, get heavy public action, and reverse line movement make the unranked team the favorite?
This trend has become more and more popular during the last couple of seasons amongst sports bettors. It isn’t an obligatory bet or a ‘lock’, but these ‘sketchy’ lines are definitely worth looking into because they usually provide ample value if you find the right angle to play. Don’t believe me? During the 2009 season this happened 56 times. The result? The unranked team was 36-20 ATS. This trend is a ballsy one to bet on, but tends to pay off more often than not.
