Here are some sharp player news and notes from
the staff of OffshoreInsiders.com

Wednesday, March 7,
2007

Providence-West Virginia

West Virginia
is 4-1 SU on neutral courts. However two of the neutral court wins were in Charleston,
West Virginia. Stevie Vincent of BetOnSports360.com reminds us, “One of
the biggest blunders that square player makes is handicapping a neutral court
as if it is a road game.” The square may overreact to West
Virginia’s 2-6 road Big East mark.

St. John’s-Marquette

Although St. John’s
will have the closest of any team to a home court advantage, they will enter
this game without their leading scorer and rebounder Lamont Hamilton. He is a
first-team all-Big East selection.

UAB-Marshall

It’s the seventh meeting in the last four years with UAB
holding a 4-2 edge. However the teams
split this year and the six games were decided by a total of just 40 points.

Arizona State-Washington

Washington
enters with great momentum having beaten USC and UCLA. However the pressure is on as they likely
will have to win four games in four days to make the NCAA Tournament. Seventeen
of Washington’s 18 wins have come
at home. Their only win away from home
though was to ASU 66-61. This game is at the Staples
Center in Los
Angeles.

Arizona State
was competitive down the stretch losing by a combined 10 points to Washington
State, Arizona and UCLA.

Oregon State-California

The Golden Bears won both meetings, but each went to the
last shot of regulation, one going to overtime.

Richmond-Fordham

Richmond did
not play a neutral game, but went 2-11 SU on the road. Fordham enters on a four-game winning streak
in which their offense got progressively better culminating in two games in
which they shot 54.9 percent or better.

SMU-Southern Miss

Cy McCormick of MasterLockLine.com says the key to finding dark
horses in March is betting on teams that lost a lot of close games during the
regular season. SMU has six conference losses by five-points or less. The
Mustangs are 2-0 on neutral sites beating Illinois
State and McNeese
State.

We will keep an eye on game day injury information. SMU closed out the year without three key
players who could be back: Bamba Fall, Derrick Roberts and Devon Pearson. Fall
is their best defensive player.

St. Louis-Duquesne

After being buoyed by changing to an up-tempo attack, the
Dukes have dropped their last seven. Duquesne did win the only meeting this
year to go to 4-1 all-time in the series. Over/under bettors will look to see
which team can set the pace. Duquesne is
an up-tempo team while the Bilikens play at a snail’s pace.

Thursday, March 8,
2007

Michigan State-Northwestern

Points will be tough to come by as Michigan
State led the conference is
virtually every defensive category, only once in 31 games allowing more than 47
percent. Northwestern is fourth in points per game defense, but ninth in the
more accurate field goal percentage defense. Six of MSU’s
10 losses were by seven or fewer points.

Joe Duffy’s sports betting selections are at www.GodsTips.com. In his scorephone days as “JD of the ACC” he
was given the moniker of “Mr. March” for his 18 hour days and unparallel
winning.

Joe Duffy (www.OffshoreInsiders.com)

Our last article articulated our enthusiasm regarding an
ESPN Insider series. It was scientific study that found common attributes on
overachievement and underachievement teams in March Madness. We believe close
scrutiny and application will only increase our “Lord of the Dance” status.

A great many of our articles, over the years, focused on
exposing and fading gambling myths. But not all commonly held beliefs are untruths.

There were some trends that the research found are more in
tune with perception. Perhaps topping the list is the importance of experience.
Coaches with at least 10 tournament appearances and teams with at least four
straight tournament bids did very well both in beating higher seeds or holding
serve when they were the better seeded team.

However, not surprisingly “experience” was significantly
more affective when combined with other top performing factors, such as
frontcourt scoring ability, “star” power (if you didn’t read our previous
article, defined as “All American”). This is consistent with what we’ve
stressed for years. Having been there
and done that is icing on the cake, but not the entire package by any means. In
other words, a talented and seasoned team is better than a gifted newbie, but
maturity in and of itself has little value if not backed by ability.

One finding that I’m not sure whether to categorize it as
contrarian or widely accepted, but instead classify it under a more significant
umbrella: invaluable foreknowledge. When united with other attributes, teams
that enter the tournament on a one-game losing streak do exceptionally well in
the tournament.

This should come as a surprise to nobody, though it likely
does. We used the terminology of the study, but perhaps the term “streak” is a
misnomer. Teams that enter the Dance off of one and only one loss obviously are
not “streaking” in the wrong direction. This of course is not flawless. Hypothetically they could have lost 4-of-5 as
an example, but it would be the exception. Capturing conference championship
means winning three or four games in a row, usually in as many days and it the
case of the big conferences, with as little as three days rest before the Field
of 65.

A team off a loss is almost always an at-large team and
will generally be better rested than the conference champs. A little wake-up
call before the tournament starts will be a positive for a quality team. Let’s
face it, teams that are good enough to make the Field of 65, somewhere along
the line showed they have an ability to rebound from a one-game setback.

Not to mention, both the NCAA committee and the betting
public can tend to overreact based on an early exit in the conference
tournaments.

The ESPN quantitative analysis of course, was not gambling
specific, so hence it will not produce direct and specific systems to apply.
However, the trial and error has beyond reproach produced very advantageous
rules of engagement for the sports gambler during March Madness pointspread
betting.

Joe Duffy is former General Manager of the Freescoreboard
scorephone network and CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com,
the premier hub of world-class handicappers.

Over the years, we have written many articles exposing betting urban legends. We warned you about the guards dominate inductive non-thinking. In a football article, we enlightened gamblers of a truth that applies in all ATS sports gambling, “Actual straight up wins and losses have little bearing on handicapping”. Our article about how great offensive teams win big games was an epiphany for many.

Peter Tierana of ESPN.com has written a series of articles that are the “Top 10 indicators of overachievement” in the men’s basketball NCAA Tournament as well as the “bottom five” or more accurately stated: the top five indicators of underachievement.

Frankly little we read surprised us. Using objective numbers, ESPN measured “Performance against seed expectations” which simply put is a study of how often the higher seeded team wins, and what factors are most common when the lower seeded team wins.

Clients know we consider units won to be the most accurate way to measure a gambling system rather than winning percentage, because it takes sample size into consideration. We have decades of experience to prove that is more statistically reliable.

ESPN ranks their attributes based what they call PASE (performance against seeded expectations). At least from a handicapping standpoint, much like above, we consider the actual +/- wins to be the higher confidence level. Thus I used ESPN’s data but based statistical confidence using a different criterion.

Here’s a newsflash: most gamblers lose.  In a related note, the overwhelming belief is “defense wins” championships and big games. We tell you time and time again, defensive intensity rises in the postseason making teams that can score big and tough baskets considerably more important.

Where’s Richard Dawson when you need him? Survey says teams that average scoring three points more than the tourney field are +46.8 victories. It is no surprise to us the highest +/- in the study using a single attribute.

Mercy me, guess what the worst +/- in the field is? Teams that have a points allowed per game below the tourney field average are -33.6 wins. The short of it is the biggest victim of upsets: superior defenses. The biggest culprits of pulling off upsets: superior offenses. Luckily for us, the subsidize-the-books gaming public believes it’s the polar opposite.

Teams with a margin of victory of 15 points or more had 244.7 “expected wins” but 288 actual wins, a +43.3 wins ratio. Margin is so much more accurate than wins and losses because luck plays no small part in winning or losing close games. Margin of victory validates a team’s truth strength.  Of course from the gamblers standpoint, margin of victory is everything.

Tieran then did a follow-up article on “attribute pairings”. That is simply when combining two factors, what were the results.  Of course because fewer games would be involved, by and large the +/- were not as high as when only one factor was needed. However PASE scores were generally higher.

The highest PASE of them all is at .509.  It says teams that got more than 60 percent of the scoring from the frontcourt and at least one preseason All-American win at the most disproportionate rate relative to seed.

Like we said, so many teams have quality backcourts.  There are so few teams have top level front courts. But those that do will advance in the Dance.

The “attribute pairings” in a modest surprise did though produce the highest +/-.  Teams with more than four straight tourney bids and a one-game losing streak entering the tourney had 207.6 expected wins but 258 actual wins a +50.4 margin.

Not that the four-letter conglomerate needs any help from us, but ESPN Insider over the years has produced copious content of value to the sports investor. March Madness bracketology is high on the list of categories.

Be warned, the data takes a lot of time to synthesize, parse and apply to sports betting. Perhaps a better alternative is to find a professional handicapper who does it for you. Ahem.

Joe Duffy’s sports betting selections are at www.GodsTips.com He is former General Manager of the Freescoreboard scorephone network and CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com, the premier hub of world-class handicappers.