 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread that's right here on the fan dual podcast network in number fire Com where today we are celebrating the start of March by talking mid major men's college basketball tournament betting with Andy Molitor of bets person getting his thoughts on some of those conference outrides. My name is Jim Saunas I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire com Joint here as always by dr. Ed Fang you can find his work over at the power rank calm and Ed Today is day number one of your bracket wisdom podcast series So I'm shocked that you're here because it feels like you should be like sleeping Hybrid eating something because that's just a lot of work a podcast every day until the tournament begins So they well, I mean I appreciate that it's actually been quite lovely this year I've done them mostly myself. I started two years ago nearly died Last year got halfway through and then COVID happened and then It was interesting because it was kind of a relief to not have to do the last three or four episodes because I wasn't feeling so Well with COVID so But this year hired Edward e-gross to help me out So he's been doing some excellent episodes and Jim. I you know, I actually haven't felt more relaxed at this point in March Since I started working in the sports business. So Edward's helping me out. I don't have traveled to Boston to Sloan this year It's true. Yeah, I was gonna ask why but I guess the combination of having the helping hand and Edward a very helpful helping hand And not having Sloan. I guess that does make a pretty big difference Yeah, it makes a big difference. You know, I mean talk to me in two weeks and it'll be a different story But right now I'm feeling pretty good. So I think the Sloan aspect of that is big because it's not just being at the conference all day you are on like you are mentally locked in for 15 16 17 hours each day that you're there and that adds up a lot Especially when it leads into this this big work time of year for you. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's kind of intense It's definitely fun. Don't get me wrong. It's it's a great time going there, but Yeah, it's intense. It is you you do need to be on and there's kind of no break I mean, I often don't ever call my family during those two or three days. So, yeah, so there's there's none of that Yeah, it's kind of weird. I actually made some reservations for a Dinner in Detroit for my birthday next Sunday. Nice, you know So just not having Sloan and you know, my wife's been not super excited about eating out But this place is in a hotel and they're using the hotel rooms is kind of private dining. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah So, yeah, so it's super cool What's the what's the food? What do you what is the birthday meal of choice for Ed? Well, this place is called apparatus room. The food is absolutely phenomenal. It's right across the Right across the street from the TF TCF center down in Detroit The chef was a two-star Michelin chef in Chicago before he decided to come home It's it's really good. Detroit has Phenomenal food. Yeah way better than you would ever think. It's phenomenal. I have not been outside of the airport I don't think the airport counts. So I'll make a trip up awful. I It's universal though universal truth that airport is awful Well, San Francisco, they had kind of been making some inroads and having some sushi places and it wasn't awful But see that requires me to travel west of South Dakota, which has happened twice in my entire life So Maybe it's just me. It's not it's not the airport. Maybe it's just me That needs to you know venture out west a bit more I was supposed to go to LA like a year ago. That didn't happen, obviously But you know would have been time number three, but we'll get to that at some I guess it's four three times So I've been to San Diego twice and LA once but Well, hopefully out of that number post vaccination where it's up to Andy monitor today You can follow him on Twitter at Andy MSFW You know him as the co-host of the deep-dive podcast, but he's also now the director of content for Betsberts You can get his analysis there for free at Betsberts Follow the name Andy for his daily analysis there Can also follow Betsberts on Twitter at Betsberts. We're gonna talk to Andy about men's college basketball The small conference made it major tournaments get his thoughts on a couple of Tournaments already under underway and some that are starting later on this week follow Andy on Twitter at Andy MSFW We're gonna have plenty of podcasts coming up talking about men's college basketball for the next couple of weeks So make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast And if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well We'll get to Andy here in just one second but first we need to go back to last week We talked some golf and covering the future and we came close, but no cigar on Brooks Kepka Covering the past So last week you're uncovering the spread we were talking about the WGC workday championship for golf and I like Brooks Kepka and Gave it a good run Kepka was 27 to 1 we talked about him on Wednesday He closed at 20 to 1 a large part of that was because Patrick Cantley went through but you know Still good value good move there for Brooks Kepka to beat the closing number and He gave it a run man. Kepka actually entered the weekend leading He was up on Friday, but Colin Morikawa went just nuts on Saturday He entered Sunday with a two-shot lead over Kepka Kepka slow start Sunday He was out of bounds on his first tee shot on one not a great start there made bogey there He did claw back got a couple of birdies in the back nine He shot a 70 for the day, but Morikawa shot a 69 to get the win So a second place finish for Brooks I am happy with the process happy with how he did even if the bet did not win But I also actively said don't bet other markets because he's too volatile And if you had bet the top three or top five you would have had the cash on Kepka there But regardless I feel okay with the personally Brooks didn't quite hit a 27 to 1 But getting closer and it feels like we are on the verge something good here It's not quite in that one for Brooks Kepka And you said you had on the background over the weekend Yeah, Jim you're proud of me I actually engaged in watching either golfer or NASCAR this weekend This being golf we had it on while I was watching Iowa at Ohio State yesterday So and I saw Kepka was on the leaderboard I wish I hadn't watched NASCAR because it was it was rough man It was rough So I'm glad we stuck to Kepka for covering the future last week And hopefully you did go against my advice and better not outright But NASCAR that is fun by any means So we'll be talking baseball from my cover in the future later today For sure before we get to that though We do have to bring in Andy Malcher to talk some mid major men's college basketball But first Vandal Sportsbook and Mountain Dew are teaming up To bring you more waves to win this NBA season With the 2021 Mountain Dew Super Trey Day Sportsbook 3-point bonus Say that 15 times fast because I can't say it once Any fan who places a bet of at least $25 on a player to score the first basket in any game March 3rd will be eligible to receive $3 in bonus cash For every single 3-point shot made by their selected first basket score Having a feeling that Portland will catch fire against Golden State Simply bet on a player to score the first basket of the game And collect $3 in bonus cash every time he hits a 3 March 3rd is coming up on Wednesday So download the Vandal Sportsbook app and get in to place your bets today Must be 21 plus and present in Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia Bonus issued is a non-withdrawable site credit that expires in 7 days Max bonus $25, terms apply, gambling problem Call 1-800-522-4700 in Colorado In Iowa call 1-800-Bets Off In Indiana 1-800-9 with it In Michigan for confidential help 1-800-270-7117 In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia 1-800-Gambler in Tennessee Call the Tennessee Red Line 1-800-889-9789 Or in West Virginia visit 1-800-Gambler.net Let's get to Andy Molitor now Again find him on Twitter and at AndyMSFW and check him out on the deep dive podcast also Check him out as the director of content over at Bedsperts And get all of his analysis for free at Bedsperts At Bedsperts under the name Andy for his daily analysis We're going to talk some men's college basketball mid majors and get you set With March officially now underway Covering the present Let's bring Andy Molitor into covering the spread to preview the mid major men's college basketball tournaments Andy we had you on the show last year and we can have later everything shut down So are you nervous about doing the show again? Or do you feel like the situation where we have to exercise the demons And have you back on to make everything right in the universe once again? Yeah, hopefully the latter. I don't think I was the cause I do remember that and yeah it was uh I've said this to somebody It said you know it was a weird obviously super weird but Like the next week I saw a bunch of my accounts go up because all these futures Had already placed got refunded You know I'm betting them it actually post up book So I got some money back and you know I did go back and I looked at how last year went We got more something in my mind was like saying that we didn't do very much But we got like six or seven tournaments to completion I think maybe even more So it was kind of midway through but yeah that was rough It was no fun when everything came to a screeching halt And I realized my Vegas trip was off All my a lot of previews and I mean you too you guys And you do I don't have to tell you guys Ed does a ton of work For uh you know March Madness all that work you put in and it's just like oh man I did a lot for nothing and this everything about this sucks so Hopefully yeah things are things are trending right this way so I think we're gonna be just fine and it should be a fun march and Yeah there should be a great appetite for it this year I remember last year we were planning for our bracket podcast And our co-host Keith Goldner was at a conference He was going to be at a conference he had a speaking engagement so like okay We had to plan the timing around when this conference is Then it was like oh the conference got cancelled so we can have Keith on whenever And then it's like nope doesn't matter there's no tournament so Definitely a weird year uh hopefully this year is a bit more smooth But we'll see it seems like things going pretty well so far and actually Some of the conference tournaments already underway so at least we've got that At least started here now Andy before we talk about you know Actually betting these tournaments how have things been going for you this year in College basketball given that it's definitely different uh with all the The postponements and stuff like that how have things been going for you personally On the college basketball side of things? Yeah a little tricky just like everything else just like college football in the fall and You know the NFL had some stuff move around I suppose we didn't actually have Cancelations but that's that's been the biggest source of like you know just Grave for me is oh I get a bunch of closing line value this number moved like two Points my oh that game's getting cancelled but they're not playing that tonight and You know the the one that moves against me oh that's certainly happening it Doesn't matter contact tracing that you know how that goes but it has been a Pain as far as and Twitter's pretty good about that they're usually Hey guess what that game's not happening oh thanks for the heads up I won't look For that score now because uh it hasn't happened a ton but I think the biggest Challenge has been you know putting some numbers together and then justing them For teams that have taken a break an extended break there's teams that have Had like 40 days between games and come back you know obviously teams like Maine and a couple other squads the Ivy League in general just didn't even Play you know but there's teams that just shut it down and said we're done But there's teams that you know that they've taken two weeks three weeks longer Breaks and then come back and played and you get a mixed bag of results when a Team comes off break you have to dig in like were they actually Practicing were they allowed to practice at all that's where you know a lot of This you know research and stuff I haven't had to do in years prior Is coming to play I guess so it's it's been interesting to stay the Least we're on we're on the right set of zero so I'm happy in that regard and hopefully it keeps going here Andy what what has kind of been your average adjustment for a team coming off a Two-week break say like a bailar on Saturday night I guess they played a Game before that but what what what has kind of been your average adjustment I mean truthfully a lot of the average adjustment is just not to bet on them You know if I mean if I'm being honest it's just like I gotta wipe it away Like I can't play this game for the most part if I can't find Any actual evidence that they practiced because there's been a few of these Where it's like they just sat in their dorm rooms for like two weeks You know taking some online classes and didn't didn't handle a ball And then you throw them back out there in a conference game and you've seen some I mean up your way you saw what Michigan State looked like when they came back I mean there's been some absolute stinkers from some teams that took some breaks so If it's a team playing against a team off a break I'm fine with that but Some of these I've had to just say I can't play this team tonight I have to see how they respond coming back or maybe I'll play a second half Because it's it's it's been kind of rough watching some of these teams get back on the court And the tough thing about that is you're talking about digging in to try to find Whether the teams have been practicing you're looking for information And that's readily available for a lot of the bigger programs But the teams we're talking about today are mostly mid majors and There's obviously good beat reporting around those teams But it's not as abundant necessarily as you'd have for some of the bigger programs So have you been able to find that information for the smaller schools or Has that been a bigger issue for you digging into these smaller schools try to find that information for them? Yes, and it's definitely tougher. I'm sure there's a few situations where it's like This team has been practicing. They're ready to go and I just can't find actual evidence of that But yeah, like I'm going on teams Twitter account. I spent enough time on Twitter as it is I'm going to team, you know these small conferences their teams Twitter accounts A lot of them have like their managers team accounts. They'll have, you know, conference counts You can find, you know, just the athletics account for that particular program And like Santa Clara a few weeks back kind of rings a bell Like I was able to find some information like, oh, they're practicing I'm going to back them off a break here. I'm fine with this. The number's big enough But I mean if I wouldn't have found out they had been practicing I probably would have passed on that and I think that game even won So it's it's it's been a challenge. It's a lot more time and involved than I'm used to But it's been fun too as far as when you do find a nugget like that. It feels pretty good That's awesome So Andy, I think we can all agree that there's more uncertainty this college basketball season Does that make you want to bet conference winners or maybe stick more to individual games? So I usually I usually still do game by game and I will Through these conference tournaments, you know a game's a game There's a little more situational with some of these Not everybody does it but some of these conferences just want to get these tournaments Run through so quick even in normal years where they'll they'll be back to back to back games Like I think the summit league is similar to that where they they do things like that Some leagues give you long breaks like the horizon league tournament takes two and a half weeks for some reason So I mean a little more a little more situational stuff But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna shy away from some of these conference futures Just it's been a lot of fun doing this the past couple years Putting together some previews and taking some shots in a few of these leagues It's and now there's more sportsbooks out. I mean that there's just there's more options I've actually had more trouble finding some odds this year, which is wild but there's there's uh, you know, there's more options up There's more Especially with these prices if you do shop around a little sometimes you can find some odd prices or sometimes shopping is You're shopping just to find anybody with a price, but uh, I definitely I think I've been able to find some values so far So hopefully, you know going forward I'll people will put prices up for all these tournaments and you know the big ones are up You know, I popped over to fan dual earlier today and looks in you know, mountain west plus some of the other big Big conferences, which is they don't even have seating figured out and some of those and they're putting prices up So respect on that but uh, yeah, I will I'll be playing conference turn of my futures for sure Absolutely, and we do have a couple of tournaments underway here. So let's talk about those You know, obviously don't have like odds for these at fangirl sports book necessarily But we do want to talk some big south because there are actually some games tonight We're talking to you Monday afternoon. So if you're listening, you know post monday afternoon Um, you can skip past this part But for games on tap for monday afternoon, uh winthrup the one seed any value for you andy in those games specifically Or any value in anyone to knock off winthrup in the big south Well, I don't think winthrup's gonna lose this one. I did bet against him against spread here This opened much. I think it's not maybe down to 12 and a half at the point where we're recording here I bet some 14 and a half on high point. They're not a good team But it's just a lot of points and there is something to be said about tournament play while You know the big south they aren't back to back to back Like there is something to be said for we don't need to win by 30. We've got another very important game We've got a semi final game coming up There's a titch of signal in that and my power numbers just can't get this quite out to 14 So I did bet against winthrup in the In the the initial odds for the big south winthrup was a prohibitive favorite I didn't lay that number either. I have some long shots on the other side of the bracket So hopefully and I did say I said gardener web is the sixth seed Campbell's the three seed They're doing seeding oddly this year and some of these seeds are not going to be indicative of just how these teams should be powerrated because There's going to be conferences that are using net rating, which I don't think they've ever done before There's going to be conferences or they're just going to be using all sorts of things Because there's going to be situations where they're not having the same amount of games It's a struggle to I mean that that's why And kind of chuckle at the net rating net rating. I know everybody and I will agree. There is some flaws with net rating I am not 100 behind a lot of it. I get the general idea It's not the worst system in the world, but and truthfully, we're just seeding a conference tournament. It's not, you know, we're not It's not world peace, but They don't have a lot of options here because there's teams that have played far fewer games There's teams that there's teams that have only played conference schedules compared to teams that have played other games so their strength of schedules way off And you know, they're doing whatever they can to get the seeding right, but uh, back to I mean back to the big south there I did say the six seed should be favored on the road over the three seed and lo and behold They're one point favorite. So I'm hoping for a gardener. I didn't bet them I'm not doubling down, but I do have some gardener web 10 to 1 to win the big south and then Yeah, the Longwood UNC Asheville game. You can have that. I probably wouldn't even pay attention. That's uh, that's not a very Not a game. I'm interested in anyway The Asheville and that was that was interesting too. Some of the odds that came out Made Asheville the second favorite even though they were on the same side of the bracket is a favorite so it's it's been perplexing a little to say the least because I think uh The the seeding is going to be a little goofy this year and it's going to fool some people So definitely don't just you know, and that's obvious advice Don't just look at the team's ranking or seeding and just make bets based on that But dig in a little on there because the seeding is going to get way out of whack on some of these teams that are going to use net Any that's that's some great advice. I'm actually going to talk about net a little bit Because I was asked about it on a podcast last week and I told him I had no idea what was going on So I've been digging into it. Let's just say it's better than rpi And let's just also say it's not perfect So I think that's going to be a way to find some value like you said, right 60 being a favorite on the road. I think we're going to see some of that as as good as as The selection committee has gotten a lot better for the ncda lboa tournament But net ain't perfect and that's where you're going to find some weird stuff When it's all said and done with the field of 68, uh, can we move on to the horizon? Um, they're starting on tuesday, uh Do you see any value in in any of these teams to win the horizon league tournament? Yeah, they did some playing on that the other this is one of the ones that really spreads out They were actually the first one to start they played like a couple games Just like, you know, the pigtails on the bracket to see who gets into the the main part of the bracket So I do have an outright on detroit. They're a pickum versus northern kentucky So hopefully they can get through And then I think I have some oh, I have some oakland as well oakland is favored over youngstown state That's one i'm i'm hoping i get a couple teams to move on here because there's some It's another one where you're gonna have a lot of these where there's a team or two Even in a field of 12 where they're going to be less than even odds to win the tournament You know, there's there's been times where there's teams in these smaller ones that are you know Vermont was minus 500 last year to win their tournament before they even played a game Yeah, you'll you'll have stuff like that where there are just massive favorites So i'm i'm hoping to fade some of those in some situations, especially in a Wonky year like this where maybe teams are a little underrated So hopefully I can get detroit and oakland to move on and have a couple semi finalists in that and then The other you know, the other two games are the favorites cleveland state and right state I don't think there's odds up right now I kind of pencil whipped my own numbers what I feel like they should open at tomorrow So I mean both of those teams are going to be double digit maybe 12 to 15 point favorites So they're likely moving on versus some lower seeds and hopefully my uh my 10 to ones can move on and that's uh conference as well All right some good sweats, and I like this. This is good Now you're talking about some teams that are prohibitively favorite That is not the case in the atlantic 10 where we got four teams at the top We got st. Louis at plus 250 vcu plus 250 st. Bonaventure is plus 350 in richman the spiders four to one Any value there for you any this tournament getting underway on wednesday anything standing out to you for the a 10 This is one where I looked at the conference uh bracket early this morning too And it's another one where there's odds up, but they don't have all the seating in place yet So I think I and my numbers like richman. I've been on richman a few times I know some very smart people who like richman before the season obviously some things have changed on that team But I think I mean you're right There is a glut of like five six teams at the top that are not too far off from each other And richman at like four to one. I think I like But I think I like to wait Because like I said the first two seeds are set and then a bunch of the bottom seating is set But it looks like and don't quote me on this because the again There was some convoluted math on how they were gonna how they were going to decide Who's the seeding here? but the top four seeds would get the double buy in the atlantic 10 And there's a decent chance richman ends up with the five seed and would have to play an extra game albeit versus like George washington or saint chose like very low low-end teams They would play a warm-up game before they played the four seed which be You know another team that's be close to them and I do think if they End up dropping to the five seed and having to play that extra game. I think the odds might go up So I think if you are betting richman, you might even get a better number Later on whereas I think if they win and end up in the four seed It it might not change all that much because four to one's probably kind of right where it should be So I I do like the spiders, but I'm gonna wait and see how these I'm a game or two left. I guess before we decide all the seating here Do you feel like an accountant trying to figure out all these like the seeding Formulas that are being out there like I feel like that's just an extra another Additional obstacle thrown into everything this year. Do you feel like you've just gotten All of your mathematics out of the way for the year trying to calculate who will be seeded where? Yeah, I mean a quote from and this is just the the wikipedia page that threw together on this tournament But basically it said they're they're gonna seed them by winning percentage within the conference Which yeah, real standard like conference winning percentage. That's right But then it says good any team that does not play above 60 of the median number of conference games Played by the other members will be seeded by their net ranking within the conference So like if you didn't play enough conference games above the media 60 above the median So yeah, we're getting we're delving into a little more math than people are probably used to as far as Just and this is just to get to the seating for a tournament So yeah, I feel like my head is spinning on some of these but in the end That's why I started doing these tournament previews a couple years ago Was I was just always so confused about why Like the Gonzaga the west coast conference Why is Gonzaga not play for like a week and a half here and you go look in the oh, they do triple buys Or you know this team this conference recedes after the first two rounds there's so many you know idiosyncrasies and changes so And you know after two years of like all right now I know how the big south does things and then like out We're gonna change it because of this weird year. So I guess I will just keep on learning That sounds good. Andy. Are there any other teams and some of the smaller conferences that you like this week? So I did look ahead and again as I mentioned You know that I I'm not able to get odds terribly early Which sucks because I really wish I could just start digging into these But there's four more smaller conferences that do start on Wednesday The Ohio Valley the ace on the Patriots and one more it looks like oh the the Atlantic 10 that we just spoke about but The Ohio Valley, there's a couple teams at the top I'm probably looking to fade those because I think Jacksonville State and eastern Kentucky are Nearly as good and if I can get some big numbers on them, you know, just like anything else It's all going to be price dependent if I if I get a decent price in eastern Kentucky I like them quite a bit The the a sun might be one of those where it's it's liberty and nobody like liberty is going to be a big favorite They're very good. They have I mean bellarmine is a decent team. They're right there But it might be liberty and nobody so I have seen in the past team or books offering Two-way props on that we're like will liberty win it or not like with the Vermont You know, I've seen that so maybe one of those where I can just take the field or pass completely in the a sun And then the the patriot is interesting because Navy is a team I actually bet on yesterday, even though they were missing multiple players and their head coach Due to contact tracing. So they're a very good team But now I feel like I need to dig in and make sure like are those players coming back? What's what's happening? Are we are we getting the whole squad back? Are they gonna, you know, sometimes these contact tracing situations get out of control And all of a sudden oh, there's three more players that are missing So if you know, if one of the top teams is going to be missing coaches and players getting into a tournament here I think some deeper diving on some other teams needs to happen Deep dive a perfect drop there for you. Oh, yeah With the deep dive podcast now, we don't want to just limit you Andy to just the mid majors So we just got some other conference posted over a fandal sports book to any of those standing out to you Or are you mostly focusing on the mid majors here? No, I usually play some futures on all those. I've had some fun hits over the years, but Yeah, the sec is impossible. I don't know what to do with that. Like, yeah, bam is good But then they go out and the same thing goes for the pack 12 Like I guess like I could make a case for Arkansas and Oregon at some like three three and a half prices But those are big tournaments, you know, they those are bigger conferences That's what I experienced when I dug into the a 10, you know I've been looking at some small conferences like here's our nice little eight team bracket And then you get into these and like, oh, yeah, 14 teams and playing games and everybody plays a bunch And it does get a little more complicated So I think when you start digging into the bigger conferences, too You do have to give a shot to some of these teams. It's like you're you're a hard bubble team right now Like you need to win a couple games Whereas, you know, there's nobody in the big south that's going to get in strictly on their merits By winning two or three games and losing in the finals like, oh, they they made a good run at it Whereas, you know, these sec there's teams for sure that are on the bubble So I I had circled Arkansas a little I wish that number were a touch bigger again Got to look at brackets and the same with Oregon And then mountain west, maybe it's Colorado state everybody's talking everybody But all my all my guys at back college basketball are talking me into that one I haven't dug into it yet, but I might just play someone to ride with the gang Colorado state plus 480 over a fan of sportsbook for the mountain west So, uh, well have some fun and tag along there. That is Andy monitor Make sure you check him out on bet spurts and also on the deep dive podcast as well I'm ready to confide follow him over at bet spurts Under the name of Andy and we appreciate the time. Thank you so much. Good luck to you Not just this week, but next week into the tournament as well and hopefully talk to you again here soon Yeah, thanks guys. Good luck to you too Covering the future Big thank you once again to Andy monitor for swinging by and breaking down his thoughts on the mid major men's college basketball tournaments Make sure you check him out over at bet spurts where he is the director of content You can get his free analysis there and follow Andy on twitter at Andy msfw and ed one of the things Andy discussed was some of these conferences setting their seating Based on that you said that you were researching nets. I'm curious. What did your research find when you were looking into net? Well, I was I was on an indiana podcast last week and they asked me about net and I actually never really looked into it before so I felt a little bit embarrassed But then we're in the time of year where net's pretty important because this is what the committee uses uh to evaluate teams and um I I'm only so useful to people right if I can't kind of dig into the analytics that other people use um anyways, I decided to dig in a little bit and Oh, and the other reason I decided to dig in is because like trying to bet college basketball this time of year is completely frustrating I talked a little bit about you know trying to find some value in indiana against michigan That line was like seven and a half eight like perfectly accounted for kind of the situation against michigan kind of wanted to uh, virginia's lost three straight games wanted to bet them tonight against miami net 14 and a half is Just about perfect. So That's that's that's partially why i'm talking about net right now. So Um, so there's two components to net there's there's an efficiency component that looks at points per possession And then there's something called the team value index, which is something that essentially values wins over teams and From what I can tell like You know in the official net page on the ncda.com. They don't break it up into the two parts But what i'm expecting is that the efficiency component is going to look a lot like my team rankings that you can get at the power rank.com Data from this season adjusted for strength of schedule That component is going to look like what I have now you might be saying ed Well, you know, you're not doing points possession on your points per possession on your public thing Uh, shouldn't you look at ken palm for that? And you should go look at ken palm because he does a great job But the thing about ken palm is that he still has a preseason component In what he's doing. Uh, that's the only way you can have colgate 90 second right now Because when you when you actually just use the data from this year because they've only played 11 games, I think They end up being top five when when you run the numbers on this year So so anyways, he's got a little bit of a preseason component. You can look at my rankings to kind of get Basically that aspect of the net and then you can kind of look at The difference between the total net and what I have to figure out what this team value index is And you know, it's essentially something that is valuing wins And so teams in the big 10 that are, you know, pretty good and they're going to look pretty good by efficiency They're going to get docked by that. So for example, like 19th is 19th Wisconsin is 19th of my team rankings. So this takes margin and victory and adjust for schedule It's it's going to be roughly equivalent to the efficiency numbers In net they're 24th So they're getting docked for not having one more games in a big in a big 10 schedule that that's pretty hard You look at the difference is even bigger with a team like indiana So the 40 they're 43rd in my points based numbers. They're 57th in net so Net has definitely helped the committee Get better at seating and we saw that kind of the first year that it happened It's far from perfect in terms of predicting the outcome of college basketball games So that that's certainly a little bit frustrating but You know, it's not it's not supposed to be like a betting tool, right? I mean, it's supposed to be something that helps the committee and in some sense valuing wins is is Putting that in there is saying like Uh, which teams deserve to be there because they've won games So that's a component that goes into there and so it's going to underray teams in very difficult conferences like the big 10 And that's what you see so um, so anyways, that's my quick breakdown of net right now, um and uh Yeah If you have any questions, let me know Do you think that will lead to situations in the tournament where we may be like a term we use in daily fantasy Is stacking where you will bump up, you know a quarterback with his wide receiver and stuff like that Or a NASCAR if I want to stack The fords or stack the toyotas something like that Could you see a situation where you just go in with the assumption that the big 10 is underrated by something by the seating and Have big 10 teams inherently outperform their seating Could you see a situation like that arising as a result of the way that net formulates its its its formula? Yeah, for sure. I think if well, I mean indiana is kind of really teetering on the bubble right now But if they win some games and they make it, uh, yeah, that's definitely a team that that I think they're talented enough to win some games They will have essential home court advantage in the state of india indiana And so you're looking at a team like purdue too that that's going to have that that Home court advantage. I mean a lot of the teams in the big 10 aren't going to have to travel that far So you could have that as well. Um, I'm definitely thinking about kind of some sweet 16 futures, maybe For those types of teams, but yeah, those are the teams that are going to be misseeded by the committee and I think it's helpful to know the way that the Brackets are set the way that the seating is set so you can try to exploit because you can't take exploit If you don't know how it's set so glad you dug in net I think that's a useful conversation to have and something we'll certainly be discussing On our ncwa tournament podcast coming up. That is actually two weeks from today Now that will be live on the fandal youtube twitch facebook and periscope page We'll be raking down the brackets as they come out letting you know how you can set your brackets So make sure you're subscribed to the fandal youtube page be there live 6 p.m. Eastern that monday the 15th to get you set to fill out your brackets now for my covering the future because College basketball not my forte stick with baseball because the first spring training games from yesterday it was uh Nice to get excited about spring training then realize the twins were not on tv for whatever reason It's 2021. We still can't get all the spring training games televised. I'm not mad but I want to go back to The mlb division of winners because we talked with the mets to win the nl east two weeks ago and this week I'm going to stick with the nl But I want to go to this central because it's I think it's more wide open Then it's being billed and I want to bet the brewers uh at plus 380 to win the nl central Most this is because fandal loves the cardinals. They're minus 105 to win the central and I think that's A healthy amount too short. The main issue that I have is he's starting pitching for the cardinals They rank 35th in the 35th percentile. They're based on my priors going into the year Before their rotation after jack flarity You've got a lot of shakiness with this rotation a lot of guys need to hit the high end of the range of outcomes And when you're banking on that with four separate guys, that's a pretty tough proposition for me to buy into I'm also not entirely sold on their offense even with no one rnato being in town If you look at just what their current active roster did last year, which includes rnato They ranked 27th in wrc plus you can get that data from fan graphs.com rnato a down year last year So you'd bump them up from 27th and my numbers do bump them up because they factor in 2019 as well So they're better than 27th to wrc plus But they're not great now the brewers are not good offensively either they rank 25th based on last year's wrc Plus their active roster, but they are better in other areas than the cardinals are They have arguably the league's best bullpen. They also have a better starting rotation may not be ideal But instead of having just one flarity, they have two guys who are really good starters in brandon woodruff and corbin birds The rest of the rotation after those two guys is heavily dependent on balls and play and That's scary because Yeah, as a picture once described to me your fielder's can't mess up He didn't say mess, but if your fielder's can't mess up if you get a strike out They're not going to get a lot of strikeouts, but it helps that the defender's Pretty good this year with colton wallen coming into play second base Kesson hero really struggled defensively at second base last year now. He is over at first base That's a big plus for those non elite starters. They have in their rotation to get better defense behind them So basically I think the brewers are a team that's going to play a lot of low scoring games this year And that means that they're going to be involved in a lot of games It does require them to take advantage of you know close gains, which is a high variance very volatile approach But when they're plus 380 to win the division I'm okay with that the cardinals being overvalued to me is creating value elsewhere in this market And that says to me the brewers are the team best positioned to take advantage of that So I'll plug them at plus 380 to win the nl central And just kind of more so Be lower on the cardinals and consents you could take that to bet the under on their win total But I think the the more value-esque way to approach this is to bet the brewers to win the nl central at plus 380 Now ad you were talking about watching college basketball. We watched a little golf I'm going to guess there's no spring training on the fang tv, correct There's not I tried to even like track the twins game on mlb.com yesterday You know, I was excited because my guy my guy byron buxton was about to bat and It got frozen They like stopped tracking the game in the fourth inning when buxton was supposed to bat So I kept like refreshing the page and I could have just searched twitter, but I'm very lazy so decided not to and Spring training can be very frustrating. I don't understand why we can't have at least a feed at every game They have audio feeds, but like I don't know. I just uh, I'm annoyed with spring training already So no better way to kick off the 2021 mlb season than being annoyed at mlb That is all the time that we have for today here on covering the spread big Thank you once again to andy molitor for swinging by and breaking down these men's college basketball Major conference tournaments check him out on twitter at andy msfw Check him out on the deep dive podcast and also check him out at bet spurts And see all of his good work there and we already talked about the podcast remind to work people find that podcast and all of your work Yeah, the bracket wisdom is a series on my podcast the football analytics show Their short episode is about 10 minutes every day every weekday from now until the start of the tournament So go check that out at the football analytics show and then uh in my email newsletter You'll get my march madness cheat sheet. Uh, just basically makes it drop that easy for you to fill out your bracket You can get that at the powerank.com. Alrighty, uh, make sure you follow ed on twitter as well at the powerank I am at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s Make sure you follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast We'll have more men's college basketball thoughts next week here on covering the spread So make sure you subscribe to this podcast on apple podcast spotify stitcher Google podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you are subscribed leave us a rating your view as well And again our uh bracket show coming up Monday 6 p.m. On march 15th the eyes of march. What could go wrong talking men's college basketball on march 15th But that'll be on the fan dual youtube page So make sure you're subscribed there as well big. Thank you to calvin theobald our video producer for running the video side of Things here today. Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in Good luck to you as you are betting these men's college basketball tournaments We'll talk to you once again next week for more tourney talk. This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network