How much is home-court advantage really worth?
By DAVID PAYNE
In college basketball, blindly crediting the home team with a set number of points is a mistake that professional handicappers and oddsmakers do not make.
In fact, the value of home-court in college basketball varies more than any other sport.
Some home-court advantages are built on obnoxious student sections. Others have unique settings and backgrounds that can give shooters fits.
Sometimes it’s not the atmosphere inside the venue but where it’s located that give opponents trouble.
Some teams have absolutely no home-court advantage.
So, with so many different types of home-court advantages, just how much is it really worth?
Pete Korner, an oddsmaker for the Las Vegas Sports Club, believes on average home-court advantage in college basketball is worth between 3.5 to 4.5 points.
“But the variance can be huge,” warned Korner. “For example, Duke has an awesome home-court advantage (although it didn’t help much against North Carolina). It could be two or three points higher, maybe up to six to eight points depending on the opponent.”
In contrast, teams like Air Force and Fordham have little to no home-court advantage this season.
“Home-court advantage directly correlates to how good a team is,” he continued. “There are college teams that are 1-20. Can they possibly have an advantage at home?”
Professional handicappers and Covers Experts Teddy Sevransky and David Malinsky agree with Korner.
“There is no default number for college hoops home-court advantage,” said Sevransky. “Home courts can be worth as little as half a point and as much as six or seven points. It varies dramatically from team to team, conference to conference and court to court.”
Often, Malinsky says the home-court advantage is supplied by the road team’s ability to deal with it.
“While there are general math models that usually come in around 3.5 to 4.5 points in most seasons,” said Malinsky, “our key is to break it down (home-court advantage) game by game.”
Three tips for estimating home-court advantage
•Look for places off the beaten path.
“When a school is not at all close to a major airport, an opponent can end up taking a couple of planes, instead of a non-stop and also face a long bus ride,” said Malinsky. “This can be particularly important if the road team has a young roster, since we tend to forget that many of these freshmen and sophomores have rarely been on planes before or had to sleep in hotel beds (which are not built for basketball players, of course).”
•Home-court advantage declines late in the season.
“A strong home court is worth the most in November and December,” Sevransky explained. “By February all the young, inexperienced road teams have played enough road games in hostile environments to negate some of that early season edge. It's not so much that the home courts decline - the road teams just get better. Look no further than Sunday's huge upsets by the likes of Loyola Chicago (as an 18 point-underdog at Butler) and Eastern Michigan (as a 14-point underdog at Bowling Green) for two classic examples”
•Look for special events, ceremonies.
On Saturday, Malinsky banked on Miami (Ohio) playing well at home on Hall of Fame weekend against Western Michigan. The Redhawks honored the 10th anniversary of the 1998-99 team that Wally Szczerbiak led to the Sweet 16.
“It is the kind of setting that absolutely matters to this level of program,” Malinsky stated is his writeup for the play.
As an 11.5-point favorite, Miami (Ohio) won by 18.
“Fortunately, that play worked,” he said. “But it is part of a process that we go through each day, not just rating how good each team is against the other, but also how important that court setting will be for the matchup as well.”
Three teams to bet on at home
• Missouri (16-0 SU / 6-3 ATS at home): The Tigers have a more traditional home-court advantage. Just ask Kansas. The crowd can make things very difficult, especially when teams are struggling against the Tigers’ full-court press. The Jayhawks couldn’t hold a 16-point halftime lead, turning the ball over a season-high 27 times in a 62-60 loss at Missouri.
•Wyoming (13-1 SU / 5-2 ATS at home): Ever try to make it up to Laramie? It’s not easy. Not counting Colorado State and Air Force, the average travel distance for Mountain West teams visiting Wyoming is more than 750 miles.
Oddsmakers give the Cowboys plenty of respect when they’re at home. Wyoming was a 6.5-point underdog at home against San Diego State and Utah. The Cowboys were 17-point and 14-point underdogs on the road against the Aztecs and Utes respectably.
•Denver (10-2 / 8-2 ATS at home): While it’s much easier to get to Denver than Laramie, visiting the Pioneers is the farthest trip the Sun Belt teams will make in conference all season.
Plus, Denver’s Princeton offense can be hard to prepare for and has caused teams trouble especially early in games. The Pioneers have outscored opponents in the first half by an average of 7.4 points.