Hoops Guru-In an effort to not hype the game,perhaps I understated things:How I really feel about this game is that they are going to make your eyes pop out of their sockets they play so well vs BC.The reason is exactly the mediocre effort they expended this past weekend in advancing.Experience tells me that a very good team advancing in this manner in this tourney is saving up a major focused performance for the second weekend.IF one of the teams that hasn't covered and yet still advances (uConn and Villanova)does it a third time in the first game this week,I would look at them as the favorite to win it all but Uconns opponent Uwash might not scare them enough that they could conceivably walk that tight rope again of not covering and still winning.But for the other winless ats team that made it to the sweet 16,Villanova,the quality of BC tells me the breakout game is coming now,Thursday.The quality of the opponent,the low number,the public perception that one team is hot and the other could have been beaten by a "decent"team last weekend,it all adds up to Villanova covering.The numbers I use are what I call the opening lines for team and total,not the ones distorted by betting action.If you track each teams ATS performance and over/under performance during the tournament and compare it to their opponents performance in these areas,you sometimes get an edge as to who is overdue for a cover or noncover,or which way the pace will go scoring wise.Last year North Carolina went into the semi-final weekend covering once in their first four tournament games to get that far.I posted them as the winner on the Tuesday before the finals in great part because of this coupled with the awesome talent they had last year.It told me that that awesome talent was very likely going to play above expectations both games that finals weekend.(Forget about using this system with defending champions or hot teams from last year,just bet against them if at all as with all public teams.)Some MJ notables such as Dr Freeze (tehee) have ridiculed this as gibberish,but no one who has tried it for a tourney or two and knows anything about gambling could doubt that it helps give an edge in certain,not all situations.
