College Basketball Handicapping – Undefeated Home Teams
Using Home Court Advantage & Isolating Undefeated Home Teams
Every season I discuss and post information on the importance of home courts in college basketball and mention how teams perform with a home/road dichotomy. Understanding home court advantage and the situations surrounding the current contests is important in helping you isolate winners. While the oddsmaker factors home court into the point spread, there are teams who still perform much better on their home floor and exceed the linemakers expectations. Such is the case again this season as only four of the 26 teams with an undefeated home record have a losing point spread record in conference home games.
This seasons rule changes including the reduction to a 30-second shot clock has provided an added benefit to the more athletic teams who get more possessions. So while their continues to be some inflated point spreads down the stretch for these power teams on their strong home courts, we continue to see many teams able to extend margins over inferior foes.
Oklahoma Player of the Year leading candidate Buddy Hield has the Sooners unbeaten at home & pushing for a Big 12 Title
Understanding player strengths and match-ups, team chemistry, current form and statistical performance both home and away is part of breaking down a game. So too is scheduling. Supporting fans and a comfortable surrounding should only help the home team perform better. Along with good coaching and preparation, players can become more consistent in their play at home along with their performance when having to take to the road in hostile environments. Once teams get to postseason play, you must factor in and handicap a team’s home/road performance to deliver more point spread winners.
In recent weeks I’ve provided some of my game analysis for winning wagers and rewards for some of these strong performing teams. But note too that even the strongest teams like current No. 1 Villanova can be beaten at home on an off night by a capable team that also defends and is well-coached like Providence, who we provided as a Top Play winner with analysis weeks ago in their big upset at Villanova as a double-digit ‘Dog. But those big ‘Dogs have been covering less this season with the rules changes, and we’ve paid a price too many times in recent weeks despite proven past history supporting our underdog teams.
Know too that there are many teams that have losing records or weak home courts in which you can support short road favorites if the situations and stats support a play against these weak home teams and courts. That’s especially true for teams that will not achieve a winning record or get invited to a postseason party.
Each college basketball season there are approx. 10-15 teams that go undefeated at home for the entire season. As of February 9 that list is 27 teams. Many of these teams will be over-valued at home the remainder of the season, but again the rules changes are allowing the more athletic and stronger teams to excel.
The ability to understand scheduling and motivational situations will help you when playing on teams with both strong and weak home courts in the final month of the regular season. By following a team’s roster, personnel and growth along with teams and coaches strengths and weaknesses, you should be able to isolate more winners. It’s up to you the creative self-handicapper to find ways to use the power of these sites (think momentum, revenge, off a loss) to deliver more point spread winners.
If you don’t have the time, energy or ability to follow all the action and if your shots are not falling consistently, then join me for more victories and value as we bang the boards and shoot for more Fairways and Green through the rest of the regular season and Final Four.
I’ll update in the weeks ahead & post notices on Twitter @FairwayJay
Here is a list of the current 27 teams that remain undefeated on their home court through February 9. I’ve also noted 1-loss teams below the chart.
Team lost since Feb. 11
- Indicates team in first place
| Team | SU Home | Conf ATS Home | Conference | Remaining home games |
| Akron * | 11-0 | 3-2 ATS | MAC | 4 |
| Arkansas Little Rock * | 8-0 | 5-2 | Sun Belt | 3 |
| Cal | 14-0 | 4-1 | Pac-12 | 4 |
| 11-0 | 5-1 | Southern | 3 lost 2/20 | |
| 8-0 | 4-1 | Big Sky | 4 lost 3/3 | |
| Indiana | 13-0 | 3-2 | Big Ten | 4 |
| 12-0 | 5-1 | Big Ten | 3 lost 2/24 | |
| Kansas * | 13-0 | 3-3 | Big 12 | 3 |
| Kentucky | 14-0 | 5-1 | SEC | 3 |
| 10-0 | 4-2 | Sun Belt | 4 Lost 2/13 | |
| Louisiana Monroe | 9-0 | 5-0 | Sun Belt | 4 |
| 14-0 | 4-2 | Big Ten | 3 Lost 2/13 | |
| 12-0 | 1-4 | ACC | 4. Lost 2/17 | |
| 12-0 | 2-4 | Big 12 | 3 Lost 2/13 | |
| Oregon * | 15-0 | 5-1 | Pac-12 | 4 |
| Princeton | 8-0 | 1-1 | Ivy | 5 |
| 15-0 | 1-3 | West Coast | 4 lost 2/11 | |
| 12-0 | 1-4 | AAC | 5 lost 2/10 | |
| 12-0 | 3-1 | SEC | 5 lost 2/13 | |
| So. Dakota State | 10-0 | 3-2 | Summit | 3 |
| 12-0 | 3-2 | Ohio Valley | 3. Lost 2/25 | |
| UAB * | 13-0 | 5-2 | Conf USA | 2 |
| 14-0 | 4-1 | Pac-12 | 4. Lost 2/20 | |
| 11-0 | 5-0 | Horizon | 4 lost 2/13 | |
| Virginia | 12-0 | 3-3 | ACC | 3 |
| 11-0 | 5-1 | Missouri Valley | 4 lost 2/13 | |
| Yale * | 12-0 | 3-1 | Ivy | 2 |
Stephen F. Austin also finished the season undefeated at home, but were not a lined team on the betting rotation schedule.
In addition, the following teams have 1-home loss, and those in CAPS have lost since January 24
ARIZONA, Belmont, BYU, UC Irvine, Central Michigan, Colorado, DAVIDSON, Dayton, East Tennessee State, EVANSVILLE, Florida, Furman, GEORGE WASHINGTON, Iona, IUPU, Indiana-Purdue, LOUISVILLE, Miami, FL, Louisiana Tech, Mercer, MTSU, Montana, NC Willington, No. Dakota State, NORTHERN ILLINOIS, Notre Dame, Purdue, SIENNA, Texas, TEXAS A&M, Texas-Arlington, Utah, VILLANOVA, Weber State, West Virginia, William & Mary, Wright State, Xavier
Twitter
Facebook