One of the betting markets that attracts the most attention in the United States is college basketball. Sports fans know that the athletes who will become future NBA stars play the game at this level. Currently, the same networks that air the NBA also air many NCAA Tournament games because of the huge audiences they draw. In addition, the nation's top online sportsbooks are more than happy to post odds and offer wagers on the outcomes of these same games. The official NCAA tournament dates range from mid-March to early April each year. The tournament is popularly known as "March Madness". It typically features 68 teams from across the United States.
If you're a bettor who understands the nuances of betting on professional basketball, betting on college basketball is just another way of interpreting the same act. You are indeed betting on the cream of the crop when it comes to high-stakes freshman hoopers, but the common betting situations and odds you will find in this milieu are essentially the same as betting on the NBA. At least, that's the general idea, and this guide is here to clarify it.
Best College Basketball Betting Sites
|
Operator
|
Bonus
|
Features
|
Claim Now
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
300% Bonus
|
|
|
|
100% Match
Up to 100€ |
|
|
|
100% Match
|
|
|
|
100% up to €50
|
|
|
|
100% Match
|
|
|
|
R25 Sign Up Bonus
|
|
|
|
100% Match
Up to R3000 |
|
|
|
100% UP TO €25
+ €10 FREE BET |
|
|
College Lines for Basketball Betting
Bet on some of the latest crop of B-ball players at the best college basketball betting sites in Nigeria. Our expert tipsters serve up winning predictions based on who is competing in today's NCAA basketball betting games. In the midst of all the excitement, take a breather. For you bettors out there who are looking for the lines that really have a chance of paying off, we have scoured the landscape to unearth these bets.
- Moneyline Betting - This bet comes standard in online college basketball betting. Based on your prediction, you pick the team that has the best chance of winning the game.
- NCAA Basketball Spread Picks - in point spread betting, you bet on a team to do better than the online bookmaker predicts. For example, if you know that Duke will win a game by 10 points, you will win.
- College Basketball Future Betting Lines - Betting on the winner of the March Madness before the tournament begins is the very definition of future betting. These are long-term bets on results that will not be known for weeks or months.
- Total/Over-Under Betting - Based on how a team has performed over a period of time, you can bet on the total number of points. For example, bet on a game between Providence and Cincinnati to end with over 100 points.
How the College Basketball Season Works
If you want to bet on college basketball, the action starts in November. A series of tournaments and non-conference games introduce fans to the season until January. That's when conference play really heats up. From there it just gets hotter, with some of the best betting opportunities of the year coming with March Madness.
Betting on college basketball is becoming increasingly popular, with over 350 schools in 32 different conferences competing for top honors. At the end of the regular season, conference tournaments are held to determine which teams advance and which stay behind. The winners not only earn the right to call themselves conference champions, but they also secure an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, affectionately known as March Madness!
Betting on college basketball is a popular form of sports gambling because of the variety of both large and small educational institutions that participate. The major conferences feature large schools, but they are followed by a number of smaller programs and then the very small programs that make up a number of the college basketball teams you can bet on. There are all sorts of ways to bet on NCAA basketball, from betting on the outcome of individual games to trying to predict the outcome of tournaments.
Most NCAA basketball teams play somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 35 games in a given season. With Mondays through Saturdays almost always booked, and some colleges even playing Sundays, not to mention the nearly daily nature of early-season tournaments, the average NCAA Division I team has about as many games in a week as it does in a month. That's twice a week for any given school. However, more schools than not play on Tuesday, and many of those schools also play on Monday, so it's more of a hump day in terms of college basketball betting.
2023/24 NCAAB Championship Winner Predictions
Making predictions this far out is a tall order, but most experts see Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, and Michigan as some of the top contenders for the 2025/24 NCAA Championship. Each of these teams has been a real powerhouse in recent years; they seem like a good bet to be a major factor in the 2025/24 championship.
While it is impossible to predict with any certainty who will win the NCAAB Championship and walk away with the trophy in 2024/25, many analysts and commentators think the TCU Horned Frogs might just have the right stuff. After nearly making the most improbable run to the championship since Georgia Tech in 1939, when TCU was unranked at the start of the season, the Frogs look ready to make another deep tournament run.
A lot of people say the Texas Longhorns could win it all. They have a lot of talented players, led by standout guard Quinn Ewers. They also have an unparalleled recruit in Arch Manning, a future star who will help them win even more than they would with Ewers alone. That's a compliment to Ewers, who is far from the second-best quarterback in the Big 12. But up top, under coach Sark, the Longhorns have the look of a top team.
Betting on College Basketball Tips
Wagering on NCAA basketball can be quite a challenge, as the schools play a fraction of the games that their elite counterparts in the NBA do. Add to that the fact that college athletes are so often forced to juggle both an athletic and academic life (apparently in anything but a 9-to-5 fashion), and it gets tricky for the sports player trying to divine who will win and who will cover. Some handicapping strategies that work well for professional basketball just might not cut it when relied upon for the high school (or college) version of the game. So what do you do? Bet less and pay much more attention to the specific circumstances surrounding each game and each team.
Betting on college basketball requires careful research into the teams involved. In particular, and perhaps contrary to what many bettors may think, it can be wise to bet against elite teams from highly competitive leagues during regular season matchups. These championship contenders often have trouble maintaining their usual focus and enthusiasm when facing conference rivals, and as a result, they seem to be overvalued in the point spread. During March Madness, it can also be profitable to back teams from mid-major conferences when they play against the average members of the so-called "power conferences". As this situation illustrates, there are many different avenues that savvy bettors can take when it comes to college basketball betting.