With just over a month left in the college basketball season, now’s a great time to re-assess where each conference stands and find value on potential futures plays. Not every conference will have a good value play, but deeper leagues will, and the end of January can offer the perfect chance to throw a dart and see if it cashes.
Here’s a look at each of the power conferences and where value might exist.
ACC
Favorite: Duke (-1000)
Value: NC State (+5000)
The conference schedule seems like it was tailor-made for Duke to win the top seed in the ACC. The Blue Devils have only five road games left, and two should be cake walks against Notre Dame and Pittsburgh. The challenges left include Virginia Tech, where the Blue Devils have been inconsistent at best, North Carolina and NC State. Virginia and Clemson only see Duke at Cameron, and the Blue Devils already beat the brakes off Louisville.
The pick is NC State simply because the Wolfpack get to play Duke in Raleigh. If someone else can upset Duke and State runs the table, a $2 bet on the Wolfpack would return $1,000. Obviously, it’s a long shot play, given that Duke has to lose elsewhere and State has to go to Virginia and Louisville. But when Duke is going off at 1-10, it’s best to either throw a dart on a longshot or avoid the play entirely.
Big East
Favorite: Connecticut (-500)
Value: St. John’s (+275)
Connecticut is playing with fire right now. The Huskies are 10-0 with only one loss all year, but they are not playing their best basketball. Of Connecticut’s past seven games, only two were decided by more than eight points. The league is down this year, and Connecticut seems to be playing to its competition’s level.
St. John’s is doing the opposite. The Red Storm are surging, having won four of seven by double digits. That included two road games at Butler and Creighton, and the Red Storm proved the Butler result wasn’t a fluke by routing the Bulldogs by 22 in the Garden. They still have two shots at Connecticut, and the way they’re playing now, they can realistically win. The schedule has gifted St. John’s a chance, and now’s a good time to get value on the Red Storm while it’s still there.
Big Ten
Favorite: Michigan (+100)
Value: Nebraska (+290)
As good as Michigan looks, the schedule does not favor the Wolverines at all. Michigan still has to go to Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State. That’s not worthy of being an even money favorite on a futures bet, and that doesn’t even touch the rest of the schedule. The Wolverines’ easiest road game left is Northwestern; it’s not at all inconceivable that Michigan could take losses to Iowa or Ohio State away.
Instead, the team the Wolverines just beat, Nebraska, looks like the better play. The fact that the Huskers lost by 3 in Ann Arbor works to bettors’ advantage; Nebraska’s odds took a hit, but the Huskers’ schedule is still highly favorable. They still play Illinois and Purdue, but both games are in Lincoln. Their toughest road game left is Iowa, one of just four remaining. Odds are good that Nebraska finishes the Big Ten at 18-2, which is probably good enough to win the league.
Michigan State is also worth a dart at +750, but the Spartans have the disadvantage of having to travel to Purdue, Indiana and Michigan to end the year. Still, with Michigan State likely to surge for the next three weeks, a savvy bettor could take the Spartans now and try to cash out for profit as the odds on them drop.
Big 12
Favorite: Arizona (-250)
Value: Texas Tech (+1500)
Is Arizona invincible? The Wildcats are the last undefeated in the Big 12, but they still have to go to both Kansas and Houston. Actually, the Wildcats still have a brutal stretch where they’ll face Kansas twice, travel to Houston, face a trap at Baylor and host BYU, Texas Tech and Iowa State in a seven-game set.
Playing that many good opponents in a row weighs on a team, and isn’t worth laying the odds Arizona requires. Texas Tech has a tall ask having to go to all of Iowa State, BYU and Arizona, but the Red Raiders have those games spread out. They’re past Houston with a split, they don’t travel to Kansas and they’re the only team in the nation that’s beaten Duke. That last one means nothing for the Big 12, but it means that Texas Tech does have the ability to beat the best and make its value pay off.
SEC
Favorite: Florida (+100)
Value: Tennessee (+1600)
Florida is projected to be favored in every remaining game, but the Gators were also favored to beat Auburn at home and instead were down double digits before they knew what hit them. The SEC is the toughest league to pick because it includes a lot of good teams but not one great team.
Every team can beat any other team (except maybe South Carolina, which looks absolutely lost), and every team is likely to pick up four or five losses before the year concludes. So this is a time where value plays make the most sense. Even though Tennessee hasn’t played very well at times this season, the Volunteers are still in the thick of things and have too much talent to languish forever. The value on them at this point is far too high to ignore.
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