March Madness Bracket

After instituting the rule of requiring all rookies to play at least one year of college basketball before joining the NBA, the commissioner’s office found itself in hot water with the NCAA. Despite making a rule that guaranteed one full season of college basketball, the NCAA and many fans of the NBA weren’t impressed because the majority of ‘one and done’ players were not ready for the big time. As we edge closer to the NBA draft in June, handicappers can make as much profit predicting where one and done players will land, as will players they spent the whole four years in college. Today we will look at a few reasons why sports betting basketball players need to stay in school.

There is much debate amongst the basketball community as to the intelligence of the players that play a season in college before turning pro. Regardless of having that one season of college education, the reality is, the players who do this are still immature, and need time to figure out who they are, before making a career of a sport they may not be fully developed in. For instance, for every John Wall and Kyrie Irving, there is plenty of one and done players that take steps back in their development, because they jumped to the NBA for a betting online opportunity, far too early. For every Kentucky, there is a player from New Mexico State who thinks he has the skills to move up but truly does not.

The other reason freshmen need to stay in school is because college teaches more then just basketball. Whether you stay for two, three, or four more years in college, you will learn how to take care of yourself both financially and through living arrangements. When a player turns pro after high school or one year in college, they have no idea how to properly budget all of their finances and make living arrangements. What’s worse, they do not know who to surround themselves with, as the entourages are there for the money not for them. By staying in college, you discover more about yourself and how to look out for number one.

It’s been a month since the Kentucky Wildcats made good on their Bodog lines and won the 2012 March Madness Tournament. With the NCAAB offseason in full effect, every program across America is looking for high school basketball players recruited in February, to fully commit to their schools. In talking to new handicappers on a daily basis, one of the first questions we receive is what goes into recruiting top freshmen? Today we will look at a few reasons why top players go to top programs.

Reputation and historical success can go a long way in recruiting a player in any sport. For instance, the UCLA Bruins program appeared to be in shambles last season as internal conflicts led to a disastrous season and the hope that Ben Howland would be fired. Regardless, like playing for the New York Yankees in the MLB blogs world, everyone wants to play for UCLA because of historical success. As a result, Howland despite all the controversy was still able to recruit two of the top three high school stars in this year’s class. Shabazz Muhammad and Kyle Anderson could become one of the deadliest guard and forward combinations since Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love during the 2007 – 2008 season.

Another major factor in recruiting top talent is winning titles, while also needing to revamp your lineup. Essentially, with so many rosters being overhauled due to the NBA draft, freshmen see an opportunity to come in to a winning program and become the star. For example, with the starting five of the Kentucky Wildcats Championship roster all declaring for the NBA draft, recruits such as Nerlens Noel and Alex Poythress saw an opportunity for playing time. The two big men are considered to be great additions for John Calipari at Kentucky. Which should increase the Wildcats odds of repeating as National Champion.

It feels like the March Madness Tournament was months ago, when really, Kentucky made good on their Bodog NCAAB National Title aspirations only two weeks ago. With last week’s National recruiting day, fans, media and handicappers alike, are itching for November to get here for a fresh season. Today, we will be looking at why a few schools that were atrocious in 2012, should bounce back in 2013. Here is a look at teams with the best odds after National recruiting day.

The UCLA Bruins have come along way in the span of a month. Recall, after missing the March Madness tournament for the second consecutive year, many people we included believed that changes would be made. Instead, the Bruins went out and signed the best National recruit in this year’s class. The addition of Shabazz Muhammad to the UCLA Bruins will effectively make or break how long Head Coach Ben Howland stays with the Bruins program. The star of recruiting day, Muhammad shocked the world when he picked a disheartening Bruins program over the National Champion Kentucky Wildcats.

The media hates Howland after colleagues SI Magazine reported that Howland refused to discipline big man Reeves Nelson, after he blatantly attempted to injure his teammates in practice. In fact, if that wasn’t enough, Nelson was also known as a huge partier and refused to abide by team rules, yet Howland let it slide. Meaning to say, it was a bit of a head scratcher to most fans and NBA media alike, that Howland was able to come away with the best recruiting class of his tenor last Wednesday. Along with Muhammad who should be a superstar, Howland also recruited fellow top recruit Kyle Anderson, along with big men Jordan Adams and Tony Parker.

When it comes to baseball betting, handicappers are always looking for trends to justify their picks. One such trend that has recently gained steam, is comparing how a player and occasionally a team performs from one season compared to the present season. For all intents and purposes, what we are interested in is how players perform from a season to next, rather then a team. Here is a guide to comparing past performance to current performance.

Essentially, when a player struggles from one season to the next, the first question asked, is how did this player perform compared to how they are currently performing. In other words, if Adam Lind of the Toronto Blue Jays had numbers of 30/80/285 a year ago, but this season goes 10/45/250 then we will look at Lind’s stats from two years ago. What we saw two years ago with Lind was that he hit 25/65/260. Meaning to say Lind is performing at a much lower level then what he is capable of, as historically, he has averaged at least 20 home runs, 65 RBI and a respectable average.

At the same time, when a player’s numbers fluctuate higher from year to the next, it is important to focus on their age. The reason for this is that when an MLB player gets hot between the ages of 27 – 32, it is considered, that the player has entered their prime. As the name suggests, the prime is when a player is entering their full potential. With this being the case, it is important to understand, that most players have a great stretch of their career from ages 27 – 32, unless they are an elite level talent. When a player hits elite level status, such as Albert Pujols of the LA Angels, that simply means they can hit unbelievable numbers for the average player, year in and year out.