College Basketball Late Season Totals Trends

We are definitely in the late regular season period now in college basketball. In this period, you have to handicap a little bit differently. Some teams will be shutting it down at least for the regular season. Other teams are playing for a conference title.

In this article, I’ll be giving a couple systems to show how totals typically trend in the late season in college hoops. It will give you an overall idea of how to view totals betting in the last three or four games of the regular season for each team

Teams with a winning percentage of 50% or lower on the season who are matched up against each other with the following filters

-Game 21 of the season or later for the team 

-Both teams have cashed the over on 45% or fewer of their games so far this season

-The posted total is 143 points or lower

In these games the over is 277-209 dating back to 2005. That is 57% wins for the over. The ROI here is an excellent 10%. 

This angle shows that late season games between two teams who have little to play for certainly lean toward the over. That is especially the case when it is two teams who have played lower scoring games earlier in the season. The results get worse if you include teams who have trended over and games that have higher totals. 

Overall strong teams playing against each other late in the regular season tends to mean there is a lot more on the line. Let’s take a look at an example of a system that has been profitable on unders late in the year. 

Teams with a winning percentage of 60% or higher matched up against each other with the following filters

-Game 23 of the season or later

-A total of 136.5 or lower

The under is 508-434 (53.9% unders) with an ROI of 4%. 

This angle hasn’t been as strong as the over angle with bad teams, but it does still show a lean toward lower scoring games with good teams late. If you include all games it is about 52.5% to the under, but if you filter out by the lower totals it bumps up to about 54%. This is interesting to me, and I believe it shows that the games with elite defenses can be real rock fights very late in the regular season. 

Keep both of these totals trends in mind as you handicap the rest of the regular season in college hoops.