CBB: Introducing the Fading Kentucky at Home System

[bills217]

Of course Kentucky plays better at home! Everyone knows that!

And that's the beauty of it.

Last year's Kentucky results, against the spread:

Home: 2-9
Neutral/Away: 14-6

Kentucky results going back to '02-'03 season, against the spread:

Home: 20-26-2
Neutral/Away: 49-27-3

Those results are even more compelling when you consider that the '03 and '04 Kentucky teams were world-beaters who outperformed expectations all season long, and still the cumulative home record is six below .500.

To me, this is enough to indicate a fundamental inefficiency in the way the books account for home-court advantage in Kentucky games, regardless of other factors involved in handicapping individual games.

THIS IS NOT AN ANOMALY.

There are several very good reasons for why this occurs:

1) Kentucky at home is very public.

2) High-brow fat cats who shell out six figures for the right to purchase lower level season tickets vastly outnumber loud, rowdy students, to contrast with most other college arenas. Rupp Arena is certainly a pressure-cooker atmosphere, but all that pressure is on the home team. It isn't hard to see how it is easier for Kentucky to relax and focus on basketball when they're playing in Columbia or Starkville.

3) Unlike 99% of college teams, Kentucky does not practice in the same arena they play in. Rupp Arena is an off-campus facility that is not owned by UK. Kentucky practices in Memorial Coliseum, an on-campus facility that offers a very different shooting background.

4) This reason has more to do with the timing of home games than anything else, but Tubby Smith has shown that he cares more about making points to his players than winning games until March, as evidenced by his constant nonsensical rotation shuffles.

This season, the system will open with:

Miami (OH) +13 @ Kentucky. (no juice at WSEX)

Not surprisingly, it opened at 13.5, and moved toward Miami, despite 81% of bettors on UK according to Wagerline.

I'm also a big fan of Over 121 for this game. Kentucky averaged nearly 90 points in pounding two (very weak) preseason opponents, and, unlike most Tubby teams (but like last season), this does not figure to be a very good defensive team as key players Ramel Bradley, Joe Crawfowd, and Randolph Morris are all below-average defenders.

P.S. If you want to see a college basketball player who plays big minutes for a top program who doesn't do anything positive whatsoever from a basketball standpoint, check out Lukasz Obrzut sometime.