College basketball betting has become one of the most popular sports to wager upon in North America. Whether you are in the United States or elsewhere, chances are you’ve attempted to make a profit off of the March Madness Tournament held annually to determine the National Champion. For the regular handicapper who uses bookie software systems to pick winners in the NCAAB, you may have used a handful of different betting systems. Today, we’ll be looking at one of the oldest college basketball systems that have brought both casual and more experienced handicappers much success.

The premise of the system requires that we simply take an unranked team that is a favorite over a ranked team. In the NCAA, the rankings are based on the AP 25 poll, which takes the votes of writers and media into account, when determining who the top teams in the country are. Depending on whom you speak with, the AP 25 often has teams that do not deserve to be ranked in their rankings, while others that do deserve an NBA ranking are disregarded.

Under the system’s premise of taking unranked favorites over ranked opponents, it suggests, that the creator of the system, realized that not all good teams are necessarily ranked. In a two year window, from 2006 to 2008, the system was a successful 50 – 28. Unlike many systems for college basketball, this system actually makes sense, as you are taking a favorite because they have talent on their roster and not because the ranked team can cover a spread. In other words, many unranked favorites, will have good records against the spread. Meanwhile, the ranked underdogs will be terrible against the spread. As a result, the bookies may favorite the unranked team, because they are better then their AP ranking.

In a matter of months, the college basketball betting lines will be receiving more action then every other sport, except maybe the Super Bowl. The reason for this increase in action, is because of the annual March Madness Tournament, which features the best teams in the nation, battling it out for the opportunity to be named National Champion. Today for your bookie software pleasure, we’ll be looking at some of the traditions associated with winning the best tournament in sports.

The NCAA March Madness Tournament has seemingly been around, as long as the NCAA has been around. Starting out with only the best teams in the entire nation, the NCAA has expanded its March Madness Tournament to feature 68 teams in a four bracket month long tournament. Each bracket has 16 teams in it, for a total of 64 teams, meaning that eight teams play for the final spots to enter the tournament, in qualifying games called play ins. The play ins have become an annual tradition, which allows NBA scouts an opportunity, to maybe look upon players they otherwise may have passed over, had all 16 seeds simply been awarded to different schools.

As the tournament progresses, different trophies and rituals are provided by each remaining team. For instance, similar to the NBA, the NCAA has a regular season MVP and then a playoff tournament (March Madness) MVP, for the player who has basically carried their team the entire tournament. Last season, Jimmer Fredette of the BYU Cougars won the regular season MVP award prior to the tournament. Then, when the Connecticut Huskies won the 2010 – 11 edition of March Madness, guard Kemba Walker was named tournament MVP for his heroics. Another tradition associated with winning the National Title, is to cut down the netting of the basket the winning team has scored upon. This tradition signifies the end of the tournament for another year.

The 2010 – 11 college basketball betting season was filled with surprises, as several major schools were looked at as potential favorites for the National Championship ahead of the Connecticut Huskies. However, as luck would have it, the Huskies, thanks in large part to now NBA rookie Kemba Walker, were able to build up momentum throughout the tournament and defeat the Butler Bulldogs for the National Title.

Now in 2011 – 12, fans and media alike, have gone from taking the Connecticut Huskies as one of the top schools in the league, to wondering if they were just an anomaly that got lucky last season. The Huskies are making fans and bookie software agents alike believe that they will not repeat as National Champions. Today, we’ll be looking at why it is only a matter of time before the Huskies come on again.

This summer was marred with Jim Calhoun rumors speculating if the legendary coach would go out on top, after winning the National Title. Instead, Calhoun decided to stay on for another year, to guide the likes of sophomore Jeremy Lamb and freshman center Andre Drummond, to National Title supremacy. Unfortunately, despite handing Harvard their first loss of the season last week, Connecticut still finds itself out of the top eight in the country, as they sit at ninth overall.

The aforementioned Lamb has filled in nicely since Walker departed for the NBA. Lamb is averaging 20 points a game, to lead the Huskies offensively. We think he’ll make it to the NBA no problem, but a National Title repeat may be out of the question. In essence, coming up to the quarter of the season mark, we expected the Huskies to have hit their stride by now, but as we enter Wednesday night’s action, the team still has yet to fully look comfortable with one another. Not something you would expect from the reigning champions.

The college basketball betting season has picked up in intensity over the last couple of weeks. From blow out wins to upset defeats, the NCAA has had it all this season. This week has been particularly special, as bookie software companies provide their clients with lists of games they should be picking during Bragging Rights week. Today we’ll look at a couple of games that should be on your radar.

UNLV Rebels v UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (+4) – Add us to the growing group of bookies that are beginning to notice the UNLV Rebels basketball program. For those unfamiliar with the team, you should try and get your hands on the footage from Saturday’s monumental victory over the top ranked North Carolina Tar Heels. In what many expected to be a blowout for the Tar Heels, turned into a 101 NBA lesson on how to knock off a big name opponent. During the game, the Rebels perimeter game was far superior to the defense of the Tar Heels.

Tonight, the Rebels will take on the Gauchos and are a four-point favorite to win the game. In theory, the victory over UNC over the weekend is a game that can really build the momentum for the Rebels as they climb up the standings. However, with college sports being college sports, a loss against an inferior team isn’t out of the question. Essentially, the Rebels got up in emotion for UNC, but they may crash against an underwhelming Gauchos team. Pick UNLV to win, but Gauchos to cover the spread.

Pitt Panthers v Duquesne Dukes – The Pitt Panthers were the first of several top basketball programs to feel the wrath of the underdog, as they lost to Long Beach State almost two weeks ago. Since that time, they have won three straight against bottom feeders. Entering tonight’s contest with Duquesne, the Panthers should once again cruise to victory.

The college basketball betting season is upon us, as after months of speculation towards who will be the National Champion, we can finally see teams live up to the lofty expectations of all the analysts. If you read any preview magazines, chances are you entered this year’s NBA lockout, more concerned about who the March Madness Champion would be. The two schools with the most votes to face one another were the North Carolina Tar Heels and Kentucky Wildcats. Today for your bookie software pleasure, we wonder if Kentucky can become more then a one and done school under Head Coach John Calipari.

Since arriving at Kentucky almost four years ago, John Calipari has been seen by many basketball writers as the best coach to get your kid to the NBA. Calipari has established more stars after their freshman year, then some would argue current all time NCAA wins leader Coach K of Duke has in his 37 years. However, the difference between the two coaches is Coach K has won four national titles.

Thanks in large part to the NBA lockout; Calipari was fortunate enough, to have two star players return in Doron Lamb and Terence Jones. The duo, along with, freshmen Anthony Davis, Marquis Teague and Michael Gilchrist form one of the scariest starting five in the NCAA. It is still early in the season, but by all accounts, this is the deepest Kentucky team fans of the program have seen in its illustrious history.

Thus leaving the question, can the Kentucky Wildcats finally do both, send an entire five man unit to the NBA draft and win the National Title? Nothing says star players to NBA scouts, then a National Title victory. As we saw last year, when Kentucky lost in the Final Four, star Brandon Knight was lucky to be a top 10 pick.

While the sports betting bonus media has focused on the impact of potential conference realignment from the perspective of what it will mean to the football programs, there has not been enough attention on the college basketball game and what it would mean for the sport. While the move of both Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC will have little impact on the football side of things, it would be a tremendous change for basketball at the college level with two of the biggest programs moving to a division that already features the North Carolina Tar Heels and Duke Blue Devils.

If the changes are made, then the entire sports betting landscape of the game will have completely changed. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils have represented the lone great rivalry in the game in the ACC, but with the addition of two powerhouse programs from the Big East, the entire mood will have changed. The ACC has already brought in Virginia Tech, Miami, and Boston College back in 2005 in moves that severely hurt the Big East football brand, and if they now go ahead and take away rivalries between programs like Syracuse and Connecticut or Georgetown, then that would be just as bad. The ACC has the chance to move back to the top of the college basketball pyramid with these moves, and even though the cost would hurt the Big East, it would make for an incredible fishing scenario with the Orange and Panthers competing against Duke and North Carolina.