[Raji]

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the other five rounds of the NCAA Tournament. But in my opinion, the single best round to bet is Round 2, on the Saturday and Sunday of the opening weekend.
The first round offers the most games to bet on, with fully half of the tournament’s games taking place on the opening Thursday and Friday of action. The non-stop wall-to-wall action makes the first two days of the tourney such an amazing event here in Las Vegas, with the sportsbooks packed from 7 a.m. (gotta hold your seats!) until the final game concludes around 10 o’clock at night.

But there are some drawbacks – minor drawbacks, but drawbacks nonetheless - to the first round for bettors. First, you get too many mismatches; games that are difficult to bet because of the vastly different skill set of the two teams involved. Very few 14, 15 and 16 seeds are capable of hanging with 1, 2 and 3 seeds. There are a dozen games in the opening round with double digit pointspreads, not my preferred wagering price range.

And many of those games involve teams that haven’t played more than a couple of ‘lined’ games all year. Even sharp bettors have difficulty correctly valuing the Belmont’s and Texas-Arlington’s of the world. I can’t tell you whether Maryland-Baltimore County is capable of hanging with Georgetown, because I haven’t seen the Retrievers play, nor do I have any relevant history about how they play against elite level foes.

The double digit pointspreads aren’t a problem in themselves, but they aren’t my preferred type of game to wager on. You’ll often see the superior team take a comfortable lead and then coast thereafter, leaving the pointspread outcome in doubt until the final few minutes of play, making it something of a crapshoot. This is especially the case with the larger pointspreads of -20 or higher.

There’s one other minor problem with the opening round – the lines have a full three or four days to settle into place. The oddsmakers have ample time to come up with solid numbers for sides, totals and first half wagers. Handicappers, sharp and square alike, have ample time to bet those numbers into shape. Whatever bargains might have been out there on Monday morning are rarely available on Friday before tip-off.

It’s a similar story for Round 3, where the lines again have nearly a full week to settle, hammered into place by the wiseguys and the general public alike. In addition, by the Sweet 16, we don’t even have many games to bet on – four games on Thursday night, four games on Friday night, less than 1/20th of what we’ll find on the average Saturday college basketball card. The games are great, the action is good, but there’s simply not as many good bets to be found with only eight games.

That problem continues to compound as we reach the Elite Eight, the Final Four and then the Championship Game. Again, it’s fantastic basketball, very entertaining, played at the highest level that college hoops has to offer. And I will find good bets to be made during these rounds, just not as many as I’ll find earlier in the tournament. The problem with the last three rounds is very simple – not enough volume.

Again, let me make this perfectly clear: Rounds 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Big Dance offer plenty of opportunity – it’s not like the betting marketplace suddenly becomes totally efficient, wiping away all our value with these ballgames. But, in my opinion, the very best opportunities take place in Round 2, this coming weekend.

In Round 2, we get 16 competitive games. Barring a shocking first round upset, we won’t see a pointspread higher than 15 or so, putting every single game in my preferred price point betting range. And 16 games seems to be the perfect amount to be able to concentrate on each one, as opposed to the dizzying flurry of Round 1. That gives us great halftime betting opportunities as well.

In Round 2, the betting marketplace doesn’t get the same chance to settle. The lines go up within minutes of the matchups being set, and the betting public is still concentrating on the current games going on. You’ll consistently see slightly weaker numbers in the second round, resulting in some outstanding betting opportunities.

In Round 2, you get massive over-reactions to Round 1 performances. If a top notch team looked sluggish against a lesser foe, you’ll often get a great price on them against a team that looked good in the first round. With teams that you haven’t seen much, you’ll get a good chance to assess how they can match up with their Round 2 foe. And, of course, you can sometimes find a vastly undervalued team or two playing out of their minds, with enormous momentum that can carry them forward.

I personally find more bets to be made, and greater value with those bets in the second round of the tourney. I put out six guaranteed plays for the 32 first round games, but I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest if I find more than six wagers to recommend to my clients among the 16 games in the second round of the Big Dance.

Raji