Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Against The Spread

Last week's post about consistency was pretty complicated- my head starts to hurt if I think about that stuff for too long. Today's post is quite the opposite. This is simply how teams have fared against the spread in conference play- their average ATS, rather than the standard deviation of that average.

In some sense this shows how each team has done against expectations, but that's not entirely true. As the season progresses, those expectations are adjusted, and that influences the spread. To consistently cover, you have to improve with these expectations-it's not enough to just be better than people thought you were going to be, since they will catch on eventually.

This first table is the top 10 teams against the spread this year, measured by point margin. I have also included a column showing how much you would've won if you had bet $100 on that team in every game, at -110 juice. Through games of 3/3.


The Boilermakers are unmatched in both metrics, as they're an incredible 13-3 ATS in the Big Ten. This will happen when you're expected to go to the NIT, and end up with a protected seed in the NCAAs. In their first eight conference games, they were favored by an average of 1.8 points, and outscored their opponents by an average of 6.25 ppg. In the second half, those numbers were 2.9 and 9.5. That's a pretty good recipe for covering in 81% of your games. (Edit: Well, down to 76% after last night.)

It's kind of strange to see the Beasley-Walkers on this list. They absolutely destroyed expectations in their first five conference games, going 5-0 against the spread and covering by an average of 14.7 ppg. But after that fifth win, against Kansas, people started to pay attention. Since then, they're only 3-6 ATS, and their average is -0.9. They're not sneaking up on anybody anymore, for obvious reasons.

Louisville is better than people think? Really? I never would've guessed.

It really is amazing to see a team as widely respected as UCLA on this list. They've been favored by an average of 9.3 ppg in conference games, but won by an average of 12. They've been brilliant on the road, covering in seven of nine games.

Wisconsin's combination is a little odd. That is caused by losing ATS by a half point twice, and a single point once. Winning by 25 @Penn St. doesn't hurt either.

Now for the disappointments:

Ole Miss was 13-0 in non-conference play, ascending as high as 15th in the ESPN poll. But seven of those wins were by single digits, and they came against the 164th most difficult schedule in the country. Regardless, people thought they were good- they've been favored by an average of 3.0 ppg in SEC play. Unfortunately for them, they've been outscored by 3.1 ppg on their way to a 5-9 SEC record.

Incredibly, Texas A&M appears on this list despite beating Texas Tech by 44 last week (they were favored by 9). They've had an extremely strange year- a -14.9 average ATS in their first four games, +7.0 in their next five, then -9.4 in their final five. In fact, their updated consistency number is 17.7, which makes them easily the least consistent team among those in the power conferences.

It is difficult to go 4-11 ATS when you're getting an average of 13.9 ppg, but Oregon St. has managed to do just that. Although I guess it's not that difficult if you go winless in conference play and lose by an average of 18.9 ppg. The distribution of talent in the Pac-10 was truly amazing this year. Washington has the second worst RPI at 104; the Beavers are 257th. Or, if you prefer tempo-free stats, the difference between 1 and 9 is about the same as the difference between 9 and 10.

A week ago, Texas Tech wouldn't have been anywhere near this list- in fact, they would've been close to the overachievers list, at +2.21. But when you lose two games by a combined 102 points, well, things go south pretty quickly.

The ATS data for the teams that didn't make these lists can be found here.

Photo: Lafayette Online.

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