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Using Scoring Margin to Pick March Madness Winners

  • Thursday, February 16th, 2012

    By  Blade Armstrong

    March Madness Betting

    The 2012 NCAA Tournament is just a few weeks away as March Madness gets ready to heat up. Let’s take a look today at one of the numbers to consider as you try and pick March Madness winners. How familiar are you with scoring margin?

    Scoring margin is not one of those stats that you see all the time in normal NCAA basketball stats but it can be found if you look for it. USA Today is one publication that will list scoring margin. Scoring margin is simply a number that tells you by how many points a team has been winning their games by. It should come as no surprise that #1 Kentucky has the top scoring margin in the league at 19.9 points per game. Ohio State is second at 19.1 and they are followed by Syracuse at 16.8 and North Carolina at 16.4. Those four teams just happen to be the four favorites in March Madness odds. Looking beyond the top four we find some interesting teams on the list as New Mexico is fifth in scoring margin and they are followed by Missouri, Wichita State, Saint Mary’s, Michigan State, BYU, Kansas and Wisconsin.

    Normally you can predict the winner of the NCAA Tournament by looking at scoring margin but last year the formula hit a bump in the road. Last year’s NCAA champion Connecticut Huskies had the second lowest scoring margin (7 points) since Villanova in 1985.

    When you look to pick March Madness winners at the offshore sportsbook you want teams that win by margins. Any team that has a scoring margin of less than 10 points is a risky pick. Louisville has been mentioned as a darkhorse contender this year but their scoring margin is currently under 10 points per game. And Duke, who is one of the favorites to win it all, is just barely above that number as their scoring margin is 10.6 points per game. If that number continues to drop you may want to throw out Duke as a serious title contender.

    To get more March Madness betting odds and information check out the BetDSI Facebook page today.