5 Teamer Basketball Betting Update Part 2.

"The Bar for Heroism has just been raised"--it'll mean something later, bare with me.

Wrapping up our look at the betting odds for the this years 5teamer pick selections. The only thing better than March Madness is betting on March Madness, why not get started in November right?

Of note, Martin Tyson is a newcomer to the pool, but not to Basketball betting online, but as traditionally happens, he's bringing up the rear. Congrats to Big Daddy, a fellow first-timer, for staying with the middle of the pack, this is often a tough nut to crack in your first year.

Tyson has the dubious honor, I believe, of going the longest before one of his teams picked up their first win in our pool history. Marist actually quickly won another game after the first (winning streak?) and is at two wins. This also means, he may have the additional honor, of the earliest tying of last year's record by a selection, and the earliest surpassing of it, as Marist had just one win last year.

I don't know much about Marist but I do know that their conference (the MAAC) is fairly solid with teams like Iona, and Geoff Perry's pick Fairfield, that Marist won't just plough through that part of their schedule either (even if extremely improved). Why would a guy pick a one win team from last year maybe "Martin Tyson" thought "Marist y nnot"?

This year, nobody, including the two newcomers, took an Ivy League team. Without a conference tournament it takes a special team to make up for those two or three lost win opportunities, as John Price, last year’s newcomer, discovered when he took Harvard.

Interestingly enough last year we had 18 different teams picked and this year it was 28. Not nearly as many commonalities which means more games to pay attention to. UNC was picked by six people, six people that are probably already regretting that selection, Pittsburgh by four people, four people probably relishing that selection, and Florida was picked by 4 people, four people probably not sure about their pick yet or not. Georgia and Arizona, two low cost teams, were picked second most 5 times each. Arizona is looking like a solid pick Memphis was the only other team to be picked by more than two people, selected three times.

In the past, usually groupthink gets you close to the top of the leaderboard. Only Bill P, selected the three most common teams (UNC, Georgia, Arizona), which means he’s really going to rely heavily on Minnesota and Baylor. Incidentally, he shares both those teams with one other player (Melissa for Minnesota, Jessica for Baylor). Eric Johnson’s slate also has a lot of common teams (UNC 6, Georgia 5, Florida 4, Memphis 3, and Illinois 2).

The thing that surprised me about Eric’s slate was picking two teams that will play each other at least twice with Florida and Georgia. He’s shortening his schedule by at least two games, and that’s an unusual selection for a veteran player. Pool leader Stephen is the only other player to have all his selections also picked by other players. Which is good for him, since he already has a lead, and it will be that much tougher for those with mutual teams to catch up to him.

Everybody else, had at least one unique pick in the slates. Martin Tyson picked the least most common slate with four teams selected only by him, and his fifth team Marquette, only selected by Melissa. Geoff Perry had three unique picks (well done on Connecticut, not so well done on Fairfield, and the schedule is tough for Michigan State but they do look like a contender). Geoff Roswick also had four teams picked only by him, but his fifth team North Carolina was picked by more than half the pool.

Also of note the top three, all went under the 100 win allotment. Quirky, but like them, I felt this year the best fits were either slightly over 100 or slightly under. Sometimes it works out that way. Course the season is early and anything can happen, and many years we’ve seen somebody not catch fire until the end of the season. Nobody at this point looks to be out of it, though if I were Geoff Roswick I’d be sending letters to Cal SB and Weber State telling them to get their act together, or at least get Harold "The Show" Arceneaux a New Orleans baller some more years of eligibility.



By the way Kevin Harlan, the original Gus Johnson?