posted March 13, 2008 at 13:10 in NCAA B Free Picks

One of the golden rules of sharp NCAAB betting is to fade the public. As a group, their basketball IQ is highly suspect. But who’s feeding the public all this misinformation? Some of the most brilliant basketball minds in the country: the coaches.

Every Monday, the ESPN/USA Today college basketball poll is released, running down the Top 25 teams in Division I. Who decides the Top 25? A panel of coaches, which is why this poll is often referred to as the coaches’ poll. Last year’s panel had 31 members, including Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and Tim Floyd at USC.

The problem with this approach is that the coaches don’t necessarily know that much about the teams they rank. It’s one thing for Boeheim to sort the relative merits of opponents he faces regularly in the Big East, and quite another to decide where to rank a West Coast team like the Trojans. Floyd’s team is a few spots out of the Top 25 at press time, but USC sits at No. 25 in the Pomeroy efficiency rankings.

The difference between the two rankings is that the coach, however knowledgeable, cares about winning. If you win by two points or 22, it’s all good. But handicappers want to know which team is going to win the next game. That’s where point margins come in. If a team is blowing out the opposition, that speaks more about their quality of play than eking out a 1-point victory.

Thursday has two games on the slate where there is a big discrepancy between the coaches and the computers: Auburn (14-15 straight up, 9-11-1 against the spread) vs. No. 17 Vanderbilt (25-6 SU, 15-15 ATS), and Oregon (18-12 SU, 14-13 ATS) vs. No. 21 Washington State (23-7 SU, 15-14 ATS). These rankings appear grossly unfair: Vandy is only No. 48 in the nation in Pomeroy efficiency, while Wazzu is getting the shaft from coaches at No. 10 in efficiency.

Conference bias plays a role here. The Pac-10 is rarely mentioned outside the West Coast media, at least not until the Tournament. The SEC, on the other hand, still has a strong reputation despite the complete overhaul of the two-time champion Florida Gators. The conference efficiency rankings list the SEC as the worst of the six major conferences, while the Big Ten is fourth. Last year, the SEC was second only to the ACC. Keep this in mind when filling out your March Madness bracket, or checking out the NCAAB odds for tomorrow’s games.

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