Horizon League tournament gambling preview

Erik Buchinger March 3, 2020 4:41 pm

Deceptive Speed will break down every single conference tournament from a gambling perspective the day each tourney starts. You’ve lost quite a bit of money this month in the past whether it’s food, drinks, gambling or bracket pools. The goal for March 2020 is to make you some money this month for the first time in your entire life.

Let’s get the conference tourney season going with a preview of the Horizon League tournament with three first round games coming tonight.

The Bracket

The Bracketology

Deceptive Speed Bracketology has Wright State receiving the automatic bid and getting in as a 15 seed. Nobody will be stealing NCAA Tournament spots from anybody outside the conference.

The Odds

Wright State -140
Northern Kentucky +220
Wisconsin-Green Bay +1000
Illinois-Chicago/Youngstown State +1400
Oakland +1600
Wisconsin-Milwaukee +6000
Cleveland State +10000
IUPUI +30000

The Suck

Detroit is sitting this year out with a postseason ban due to academics, but this should allow some time to study. IUPUI has the worst odds outside of Detroit where a $10 bet turns into $3,000 if the Jaguars cut down the nets with a Horizon League title.

The Bet

The Horizon League tournament has an unusual format, which seems to punish the top seeds. The top two seeds Wright State and Northern Kentucky receive byes all the way to the semifinals, which sounds like a good thing, but the #1 seed in the Horizon League tournament hasn’t won for four consecutive seasons.

Why is that?

Wright State’s last regular season game was played on Friday, and they’re not playing again till next Monday. They’re taking 10 days off without playing a college basketball game, and that has not been a good thing recently. This year’s tournament semifinals and finals are being played in Indianapolis, so the best teams don’t even get any homecourt advantage.

I’m not taking Wright State to be the first 1 seed since 2015 Valparaiso to win it all, especially at -140. Northern Kentucky’s odds aren’t doing it for me, so let’s invest on Wisconsin-Green Bay to take home the title as the 3 seed at +1000. The fightin’ Phoenix won 4 of their last 5 games and split their season series with Wright State and Northern Kentucky.