2011 College Basketball Over/Under Stats
One of the best ways to predict the future is to look at the past. That holds true in plenty of different areas, with sports betting being no exception. What we'll do here is look at over/under results in a number of different categories from the 2010-11 season and look for any advantage we might find to use in the upcoming season. Since there were roughly 3,300 regular season games with linesn them, one season gives us a decent sample size and there's really no need to go back farther.The results presented here were obtained from this year's Stat Attack For College Basketball 2011-12 program and gives you an idea of some of the things you can do with it.
Regular Season Over/Under Trends
For the purpose of this article, we'll look at regular season games only, as later on we'll take a look at conference tournaments and then post-season tournaments.For years may of you have probably heard that betting under is the way to go. The assumption was that that the general public liked to bet over more than under, so the line would be shaded a few points higher than it should be. That may have been true in the past, but today's bettors tend to be a bit more knowledgable and that's no longer the case.
Last year's regular season over/under results were about as close to dead-even as they could possibly be, as 1594 games went over the total, 1600 went under the total and 43 landed on the number. That means that 49.9% of the games went over the total, so I'd say the linesmaker is doing a pretty good job.
Totals Breaksdown
Now we'll look at certain ranges of numbers and see how the over/under fared giving the results and percentages in favor of the over:124.5 or fewer points: 146-132-5 (52.4%)
125 to 129.5 points: 228-226-9 (50.2%)
130 to 134.5 points: 355-364-11 (49.4%)
135 to 139.5 points: 376-359-8 (51.2%)
140 to 144.5 points: 272-270-7 (50.2%)
145 to 149.5 points: 134-168-3 (44.4%)
150 to 154.5 points: 70-71 (49.6%)
155 to 159.5 points: 19-20 (48.7%)
160 or more points: 5-6 (45.5%)
Several things stand out a bit. The first is that games with lower numbers tend to go over, while those with higher over/unders seem more likely to go under the total. The second is the poor percentage of games to go over the total in the 145 to 149.5 point range.
If we use 145 points as our base, we'd see that games with a posted total of less than 145 were a combined 1377-1351-40 in favor of the over, which is 50.5%. Games with a total of 145 or higher were a combined 228-265-3, which is 46.2% to the over and would show a flat-bet profit.
Days the Week
Next, we'll look to see if when the game is played affects the over/under tendency at all:Monday: 88-92-1 (48.9%)
Tuesday: 144-147-12 (49.5%)
Wednesday: 286-315-7 (47.6%)
Thursday: 236-203-7 (53.8%)
Friday: 91-121-1 (42.8%)
Saturday: 611-571-18 (51.7%)
Sunday: 149-168-3 (47%)
Friday's tendency to go under the total is interesting, especially when you consider the two conferences which normally play on Friday, the Ivy League and Metro Atlantic, don't display that much of a tendency to go under. Ivy League games were 28-26-1 to the over, while the Metro Atlantic was 42-50. If we subtract those two conferences, we'd see that the other conferences were 20-47 when playing on a Friday.
Also noteworthy were the tendencies to go over on Thursday and especially Saturday, as Saturday is considered to be the one day the general public is most likely to get involved due to the large number of games played.
