College Basketball Betting Tip: Back Losing Teams With Bad ATS Records

If you have a sports betting theory it can be tested with Bet Labs.

Last week, my colleague Bryan Mears wanted to know whether the best teams in college basketball — those playing for the postseason and/or seeding — are undervalued by the betting market.

To Bryan’s surprise the opposite was true. The worst teams have been undervalued by the oddsmakers late in the season.

“Postseason motivation” for good teams leads to inflated lines and creates value on bad road teams late in the year. Buying into this theory, I copied Bryan’s system and added it to my collection.

But before making bets following the system matches, I wanted to see if I could improve the results. Knowing that bad teams are usually undervalued I thought it might be more profitable to wager on teams that not only struggle to win games, but also cover the spread.

By simply targeting bad teams with a losing against-the-spread (ATS) record,  I was able to improve Bryan’s system.

Teams that fit these criteria have gone 197-133-10 (59.7%) ATS since 2005. A $100 bettor would have returned a profit of $5,353 following this system. My updated betting system has been a consistent winner with only two losing ATS seasons in the past 15 years.

Not only does Bet Labs allow you to test any theory, but it gives you the ability to improve upon other’s work.

Upcoming System Matches

Here are five matches for this system on Saturday and Sunday.

• Arkansas Little Rock at Georgia State (Saturday, 1 p.m. ET)
• Pittsburgh at Virginia (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET)
• NC Wilmington at College Charleston (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET)
• Western Illinois at South Dakota State (Saturday, 5:15 p.m. ET)
• Tulane at Temple (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET)