Mid-major conference tournaments are underway, with each team’s goal to run the bracket and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The path to a conference tournament title game is brutal, which makes it difficult to be crowned champion. But it creates an opportunity for bettors.
In many conference tournaments, teams play on consecutive days against increasingly difficult competition. The high-pressure matchups, combined with increased player fatigue, can lead to lower scoring games.
Using our Bet Labs database, we find that the under has gone 1,791-1,666-49 (51.8%) in all conference tournament games since 2005. A majority of these games are played at a neutral site, but in many small conference tournaments, the higher seeds actually receive home court advantage in the early rounds.
By eliminating these games and focusing on just contests played on a neutral court, where less familiarity with the surroundings can promote a low-scoring environment, a $100 bettor would increase their profit from $292 to $2,528.
If fatigue is a significant factor like we believe, then players should become more worn-out as a tournament proceeds. As you can see from the table below, betting the under becomes more profitable later in the tournament:
Most of the value betting the under in conference tournaments comes in the finals, when players have logged the most minutes and the competition is the stiffest. Since 2005, the under is 188-136-11 (58.0%) in the finals of conference tournaments played on neutral courts.
The optimal strategy of betting the under in conference tournament finals is to target games the oddsmakers expect to be low scoring. In finals matchups with a total of 140 or less, the under has gone 119-72-6 (62%) since 2005.
This system has been profitable in nine consecutive postseasons. Below are today's championship games that match this system.
Game Matches
- Saint Louis-St. Bonaventure under 119.5 (1 p.m. ET, CBS)
- UT-Arlington-Georgia State under 138 (2 p.m. ET, ESPN2)
- Cincinnati-Houston under 128.5 (3:15 p.m. ET, ESPN)
- Michigan-Michigan State under 130.5 (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS)
