The Dangers of Handicapping by Comparative Scores

There is a continual tendency in college basketball to analyze upcoming games by comparing how well two opposing teams have done against common opponents. Yes, this can be useful, but it is also too "basic" and can be very misleading.

Here are some of the problems with using comparative scores as the major basis of your handicapping:

1. It can overlook player matchups in the game you're analyzing. The matchups in the game in question, of course, should be your primary consideration. The way the players play determines the straight-up outcome of games, and usually the pointspread outcome.

2. It can overlook injuries. If a team was missing a key player in one of the games you are reviewing, but the player was available in another, you could just be fooling yourself.

3. It often ignores scheduling dynamics. One of the teams in question might have been well-rested when it played a common opponent, while the other might have been playing on short rest, or perhaps was coming off a particularly difficult stretch of games, or was recovering from difficult travel arrangements (which happens a lot with teams in the North and Midwest during the winter months). The final scores of such games might not come close to reflecting the real ability of a team.

4. It might overlook home/road aspects of the relative matchups. In college hoops, the home and road performance of teams can be dramatically different. I'm sure this is not news to you. Teams that are young - but very talented - might struggle in an ugly fashion in early road games. But that same team, when its young players gain a little experience, might become extremely competitive after just a couple of road trips. Good players, even if young, will respond positively after some early negative performances; weak players will not.

5. It can overlook the overall development of a team. There has been perhaps no more significant change in the 1990s and 2000s than the increasingly rapid push/emergence of young players (or other newcomers, such as jucos, transfers, Europeans, and so on) in college hoops. As I've written before, teams now can go through three or four "incarnations" in the same season! Looking back very far to examine results against common opponents also can be a major mistake if the freshmen, jucos, or Euros have since moved into the lineup, replacing players who might have lost starting jobs, transferred, or lost their academic eligibility.

6. You can be prone to overreact to one outstanding performance, or one awful one. Sometimes, the final margin does not reflect the closeness of the battle, especially if a key player gets into early foul trouble, or if one team misses several desperate late shots that lead to opposing layups or a series of free throws. By and by, in the midst of conference play, each team tends to take on a character of its own each season. In most games, it will demonstrate that character rather than reflect an extreme result that might have occurred earlier.

7. There is a tendency to overreact to a team's latest performance. It can be argued quite well that a team's most recent performance is its most revealing performance. However, the oddsmakers are going to adjust their pointspreads to take advantage of a team's most recent game, especially when it was either extremely good or extremely bad, and particularly if it was on national television. They are going to anticipate a bit of overreaction by the thousands of people who viewed the game. It's better to review a team's most recent three, four, or five games, and not just one, even though it's always important to move quickly if you're going to keep up with the oddsmaker.

So, if not comparative scores, what should you use?

With all the player changes and youth these days, the basics are still the key. Rather than analyzing comparative scores of two teams, compare their size, depth, quickness, shooting ability, and on-floor intelligence. In college hoops, the style and coaching of the two opponents are crucial. Even if there's a big talent disparity, it's still easier to "slow a team down than speed it up," especially if a coach has experienced guards and has the knack of teaching his players the difference between a good shot and a bad shot (some teams never learn). And always use updated power ratings to help identify pointspread value and/or possible injury problems in a game before "investing."

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the first word in sports handicapping for 46 years. The amazingly compact Gold Sheet features analysis of every hoop game, exclusive insider reports, widely followed Power Ratings, and a Special Ticker of key injuries and team chemistry. If you have never seen The Gold Sheet and would like to peruse a complimentary sample copy, call The Gold Sheet at (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and mention that you read about it in Card Player. You can look up The Gold Sheet on the web at www.goldsheet.com.