March Madness only comes once a year, and everyone loves the excitement of the NCAA basketball tournament and all the betting opportunities it brings. Still, the entirety of the college basketball season has plenty of ways to wager on games.
The first week of November marked the start of the 2024-25 college basketball season, with several teams looking to have big years and capture the national title glory that UConn has enjoyed the last two seasons.
You can make NCAAB picks on a team to make a title run, on individual games, or even players’ stats by the season or the game. Just as many teams across the country are playing for March Madness glory, there are many betting options on college basketball.
Betting On A Champion
Some people prefer to wait for the tournament field to be announced and make a bet on a team they think will win it at all at that point, but from the moment the previous champion was crowned, futures odds have been set for the following season’s champion.
The UConn Huskies have won the last two national titles, and heading into the 2024-05 season, they’ve been anointed the favorite in the NCAAB championship odds. Before a single game had been played, UConn was sitting at +800 to win a third straight title, but there are plenty of other betting options.
Kansas, Duke and Alabama joined Houston, North Carolina and Gonzaga are other top contenders when looking at the college basketball odds. Iowa State and Kentucky are among the teams trending in the right direction in the championship odds. If you feel confident about a team being the next champion, putting down a bet at any point is an option.
If you think a small school will make a championship run, you can wager on them to win the title. The odds will be long, but hitting on a wager like that can give bragging rights and a very nice payout.
There are also college basketball odds for every Division I conference championship in the country, so don’t feel limited to “National Title or Bust” bets. Women’s basketball championship odds are also available through the BetUS sportsbook.
Single-Game Betting
The easiest way to bet on college basketball is by picking out a single game and making some wagers. NCAA basketball lines are set for every game across the country throughout the regular- and postseason, so you have plenty of options, even within each game.
For the game result, there are two options for betting on which team will win. The first is the point spread set at BetUS Sportsbook for every game. The team expected to win is favored by a certain number of points, and they need to win by at least that many for you to get a bet that pays out. Make sure to get your bets in before the opening tip.
It could be as small as a single point or, in some cases, as many as 25 to 30 points, depending on the amount of a mismatch the game is. But if you’re confident that that team will win and “cover” or win by that many points, that’s the best way to go because it will give you better odds than if you bet on a straight-up win.
Taking the underdog will give you a chance to win if that team loses by fewer points than the point spread. A five-point underdog losing by one, two, three or four points would deliver a winner.
The college basketball spreads help you get a win in a game, but they’re not the only way to wager on a game result.
There is also the moneyline, which sets college basketball odds for which team could win without a point spread involved. If you have San Francisco to upset Gonzaga and feel like you don’t need the help of a point spread, you can bet on the moneyline and get much better odds for the upset win.
To show the difference in the odds on a moneyline bet compared to a point spread bet, let’s look at that San Francisco vs Gonzaga game a little closer. Let’s say Gonzaga is favored by 5½ points. If you bet on San Francisco getting those 5½ points added to its score, you’d likely get -110 odds.
But, if you bet on San Francisco on the moneyline, which doesn’t get any points, meaning a straight-up win is required, you could have odds like +180. That’s certainly a better payout if you believe San Francisco will win outright.
Betting The Totals
There are other ways to bet on the game from a team standpoint. Let’s say you think Michigan State vs Illinois will be a high-scoring game, but you’re not sure which team will win. You can bet the total.
A total bet – or over/under – is taking the total number of points that will be scored in the game as set by the sportsbook and making your bet on whether the actual point total will be over or under that predicted number.
Michigan State and Illinois may have a total set at 165½, but you think it will be more of a defensive struggle. You can bet the under and cheer on the defense throughout the contest, hoping for a final score that adds up to 165 points or less.
You’ll usually get identical odds for either the over or under bet, but sometimes, the odds can vary slightly depending on how the betting has gone on the game thus far.
There are also total bets that you can make for each team, as well as for the first or second halves. If you think the Illini will start fast offensively, you can bet the over on their set first-half total.
There are a multitude of college basketball bets you can make on the totals, with BetUS Sportsbook providing all that you could ask for.
Prop Betting on College Basketball
While betting on a game’s outcome or point total is fun, other options exist for making NCAAB picks on a game.
Prop bets are wagers made on an individual’s performance, whether scoring points, 3-pointers made, or any stat you can think of.
Freshmen Cooper Flagg of Duke and Dylan Harper are among the players delivering on prop picks in the early stages of the 2024-25 college basketball season. College basketball picks and parlays with those two players or other productive players can pay off.
You could also make these types of bets with more obscure players, as the over/under for players’ stats vary depending on their expected performance.
Any bet, whether on a highly-ranked player or team or a lesser-known player or team, counts the same as far as a win, based on the college basketball odds. So it’s not just betting on star players for your prop bets.
Knowing players’ tendencies and recent box score results helps in this case. Injuries are also a factor to consider when making these prop bets.
But after you do your research, you can make prop bets on almost any player that is expected to be in a game, making every play significant to your betting.
Individual Futures Bets
As you might have expected, there are even more options for betting on college basketball. The Player of the Year award has odds set for it each season, and you can make a wager on the player you think will earn the trophy.
Heading into the 2024-25 campaign, some of the best odds to win the National Player of the Year award were going to North Carolina’s RJ Davis (+600), Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson (+650), Alabama’s Mark Sears (+700) and Kansas’ AJ Storr (+1800). But, if you thought a long shot like Illinois’ Kylan Boswell (+20000) or Alabama’s Chris Youngblood (+20000) would have a surprisingly great season, you could also wager on one in the college basketball futures odds.
There are also odds set for the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament, conference Player of the Year awards, and the top player in the country in individual categories such as scoring or rebounding.
When the time comes for the NBA Draft, you can wager on your favorite college players and where and by which team they’ll be drafted. Much like the national championship odds, the odds for the top player to be drafted can be set as much as a year in advance by the basketball futures odds, so you can take a shot early on and watch how the player performs all season. Six of the first 10 players taken in the top 10 picks in the 2024 NBA Draft were college players.
Making College Basketball More Exciting
As any sports bettor knows, wagering on any game can make it even more exciting. One of the biggest draws for the NCAA Tournament is the number of casual fans with brackets, so they cheer for every game.
Betting on college basketball lets you have that feeling all season long. A game between two lower-tier teams in a small conference can be as exciting as a matchup between No. 1 and No. 2 in the country.
As we stated before, the biggest thing you must have is knowledge of the game or player you’re betting on. There are many options for wagering on college basketball betting lines, but the winning bets come from having some background knowledge. It is never a bad idea to keep tabs on teams consistently covering and those failing to do the same.
BetUS Sportsbook provides insight and previews of many games throughout the season, helping you make informed bet choices. However, you can review previous results to feel confident about your wagers.
March Madness is great and a staple of American sports. However, the college basketball season can provide plenty of excitement from the season’s opening tip until the national champion is crowned if you have wagers on games.
