In college basketball wagering, we have focused in on two betting strategies this season to find winners: unranked favorites or small underdogs playing ranked teams and worse ranked teams favored over better ranked teams. We use these strategies to guide us in our journey to find line value because the harder, less obvious side is usually #sharp. These strategies are our convictions regarding college basketball wagering, but we can't blindly follow them every time. We must avoid always selecting lines that fit our admittedly simple strategies and avoid the monster of confirmation bias, which is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.
Strong convictions weakly held, a phrase that I first heard used by Marc Andreesen, founder of the famous venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, applies to anyone who is searching for the truth, or, like we do in wagering, or even investing, the closest approximation we can get to it. In wagering, we have to make decisions based on incomplete information in rapidly changing environments with no objectively right answer. The best we can do is form a view guided by strategies based on the past, similar events and the best available information we have today. A lot of folks idealize the person who has the courage of his convictions, but the most difficult thing to do is often not standing by your convictions, but holding them weakly and being able to leave them behind, at least temporarily, if the information changes. In wagering, there is no good and evil, only profit and loss, and we must learn to change our approach based on the facts in front of us.
As such, when the available information conflicts with our typical strategies, like we think is happening in the (19) Michigan +4.5 vs. (23) Ohio State matchup, we must be able to temporarily leave our strong convictions behind, in this case, leaning towards the worse ranked favorite, Ohio State. Why do we like Michigan?
1) Free roll on Brooks - Eli Brooks participated in the morning shootaround, which indicates that he has a real chance to play today. https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/2020/03/01/eli-brooks-injury-update-ahead-of-michigan-basketball-at-ohio-state/ Given the late steam that pushed this line from Michigan +3.5 to Michigan +4.5, we do not think the market is factoring this in. Michigan is a much better team on offense and defense with Brooks. He is their best perimeter defender and contributes 11pts per game on offense. Therefore, we are getting a free roll on Brooks if he plays, and if he doesn't, it's already factored into the line.
Counterpoint: Michigan is 4-5 on the road while Ohio State is 14-2 at home. We think Michigan is at least as good, if not better, than the two teams that have beaten Ohio State at home: Wisconsin and Minnesota. Moreover, we don't need Michigan to win, only to cover the 4.5, but we think Michigan could win outright. Additionally, Michigan is playing much better basketball now, winning 5 games in a row before falling to Wisconsin who shot very well from the field (54 FG% and 48 3P%). We don't expect Ohio State to shoot as well, particularly if Brooks plays for Michigan.
2) Fundamental lineup change - Isaiah Livers didn't play in previous tilt: Ohio State beat Michigan 61-58 during the previous matchup in Ann Arbor, but Isaiah Livers, Michigan's second-leading scorer, did not play in that game. He is playing today and has average more points per game than Zavier Simpson since returning to the lineup. Moreover, Kyle Young, a real rotation player for OSU, who averages 23 minutes per game, will be out for this game.
3) Line Analysis - Market now says OSU is half point better better than the Michigan team it previously faced: During the previous matchup, without Livers, Michigan was a 3 point favorite in Ann Arbor and now Michigan is a 4.5 underdog in Columbus. Assuming a 3.5 pt home court advantage, the neutral court line for the old game was OSU -0.5 and for this game is OSU -1. We think, with Livers, Michigan should be the neutral court favorite, so we're at least getting 2 points of line value.
The Bet: 1U on Michigan +4.5 against Ohio State. Keeping this bet at 1U instead of 2U because we typically don't like this situation, betting the better ranked team with points against the worse ranked team.
Other picks (1U):
Stanford -1 vs. (21) Colorado. We love the unranked favorite at home against a ranked team. Stanford is the number 6 team in adjusted defense per KenPom and is playing it's best basketball right now, while Colorado has lost 3/5. The last team these two teams played Colorado overcame a 16 point deficit in Boulder, showing Stanford can beat this team. We think Stanford gets the job done at home. Big tree won't. fall.
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