How A New Head Coach Affects A College Basketball Program

We are a month into the college basketball offseason, and already sportsbook enthusiasts are seeing how coaching changes can affect the culture of the programs they are taking over. On paper, the two most important alterations a struggling program can make is to the roster and the coaching staff. Today, we will look at why the addition of a new coach is far more important then the addition of new recruits from National signing day. Here is a sports betting online guide to the affects of new coaches.

For all intents and purposes, a coaching change is usually what happens when a program struggles. In many cases, the change in philosophy can be the difference between having to rebuild the program from scratch, and sticking with the current roster but using a new strategy. For example, when the UCLA Bruins failed to live up to expectation and return to the March Madness tournament this season, many local media outlets believed it wasn’t the players that needed to be cut from the team, but rather head coach Ben Howland. While NBA writers couldn’t get their wish with a firing of Howland, they were able to see two of three top recruits sign with the program.

On the other hand, a coaching change as we mentioned can sometimes be a good thing for a number of reasons. For instance, sometimes the message just gets old, or the players take advantage of the coach’s good nature. As a result, they fail to live up to the hype. However, with a new coach, the players are put on notice that their past actions will not be tolerated. This stance wasn’t evident at any school, more so then Southern Methodist University, who hired former NBA head coach Larry Brown to take over a struggling program. Brown is known as a stabilizer coach, as he goes into college and professional programs, changes the message, then a new coach comes in and puts the team over the top. Brown’s task at SMU will be to stabilize a program that hasn’t made the March Madness tournament in nearly 19 years!

Handicap College Hoops Teams Not In March Madness

February represents the final month of the college basketball betting regular season. Included in the month, are the bracket buster and conference tournaments, to determine the final seeding in the March Madness betting tournament. For every team that has qualified for the biggest playoff tournament of the year, and is on the cusp of qualifying, there are 20 to 30 teams that have been eliminated for a while. As handicappers, we are always trying to find value on games, in order to come out on top. Today, we’ll look at the strategy of handicapping teams not in the March Madness qualifying.

For all intents and purposes, teams that are out of the running for a playoff spot in any sport are always great to look at. The spoiler role often goes overlooked at sportsbooks, because the bookies automatically believe that the elite teams or teams on the bridge of taking the next step in their development, will walk all over defeated teams. However, as luck would have it, whether it is the NBA or NCAA, the defeated teams can still get motivated for certain games. Here are a couple issues we take note of with defeated teams as the season winds down.

Two of the biggest factors we take into account for teams that classify as defeated teams, are the preseason expectations, and the average age of their rosters. Firstly, the preseason expectations can be a huge indication of how a team plays down the stretch. Essentially, if a team was expected to win only five games, but has seven wins they may play strong down the stretch, in order to build the momentum for next season. As a young team with low expectations, the players will be full of energy. At the same time, an experienced team that played well below expectations may continue to do so, as they continue to feel sorry for themselves.

Orange Bowl Preview Is This The Worst One Yet?

The 2011 – 12 college football betting bowl games season was filled with controversial decisions, as many teams qualified for bowl games that in any other year they likely would not have. One of the major bowl games that defines this belief completely, is the Orange Bowl, featuring the Big East Champion West Virginia Mountaineers taking on the ACC winning Clemson Tigers. The Mountaineers were a bookie software worst nine and three on the season, giving them the lowest win loss record to qualify for a major bowl game. Clemson is a big more respectable at 10 and three on the season. Here is an NFL preview of the Orange Bowl.

If you ask any bookmaker, they are without question taking the Clemson Tigers to destroy the West Virginia Mountaineers and with good reason too. In Clemson’s 10 victories, sophomore quarterback Tajh Boyd looked like a grizzled veteran, ready to be drafted in the lottery of the NFL draft. Conversely, in Clemson’s three losses, Boyd threw for five interceptions, and was under 50 percent in completions. If the Tajh Boyd that single handily won the first eight games of the regular season shows up on January 4, 11 the West Virginia defense will be in for a long night.

Clemson wasn’t just good this season, they were fantastic, as they killed the Virginia Tech Hokies in both games this season. The Clemson defense, made the ACC’s best offense look like the worst offense, as they limited the Hokies to 13 points on the season. Meaning to say, if Clemson’s defense plans a similar attack against the Mountaineers, they should be given the Orange Bowl title, as the game will just be a formality. Pick: Clemson 28 – 13.

NCAAF Picks

Week 14 of the college football betting season is only a few days away, and still there is plenty left to be determined for the upcoming Bowl season. Despite the protests of basically everyone in the country, the BCS Title game is shaping up to be a rematch of the snooze fest that was LSU v Alabama almost a month ago. Barring any heroics this week, the bookie software odds of a rematch are quite high. Here are a few picks for week 14.

Oklahoma State Cowboys v Oklahoma Sooners – In what is naturally one of the biggest games of the season, things couldn’t be more important for the Oklahoma State Cowboys this week when they face interstate rivals the Oklahoma Sooners. The Cowboys and Sooners will face off in the Big 12 Championship Game, and the winner of the game could see their position in the AP 25 standings increase dramatically. Essentially, if Oklahoma State blows out Oklahoma on Saturday, it could allow them to jump over Alabama into the second seed overall. This in turn, would set up an NFL worthy gunfight between the Cowboys and the LSU Tigers in the National title game.

However, in all likelihood, the Sooners keep things close and we are instead given an all SEC National Title game when Alabama faces LSU. This game should have an asterisk beside it, as Alabama will most likely become the first ever team to make the National Title game, without having to play in their conference’s championship game first. In order to keep things pure, we want Oklahoma State to destroy Oklahoma.

Southern Miss v Houston – The Houston Cougars are looking to win their 13^th game of the season, and be awarded a BCS Bowl game slot. By all accounts, that shouldn’t be a problem when they face Southern Miss, as Houston should play in one of the Fiesta or Sugar Bowl. By all accounts, look for Houston to once again crush an opponent, before meeting Michigan in the Sugar Bowl.

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