Quote:
Originally Posted by sethseth
Seems like hype/momentum/winning is overly accounted for in basketball lines and standard "regression to the norm" type analysis can get you somewhere. I guess I won't know until I do it some more so I'll just keep the betting super small.
You're not the first person to notice this about basketball lines. For whatever reason it just doesn't work that way. I'll give you an example I remember from CBB last year. I think it was Mrquette @ ND -5. At the half, Marquette was up by 4. The 2nd half line was ND -6.5. Now how does that make sense? They were supposed to beat Marquette by 5 in 40 minutes, but now, after proving themselves inferior to marquette after 20 minutes, they're supposed to beat Marq by even more in half the time?
But that's not uncommon. Those types of strange lines come up all the time, and in my first hand expereince, the sharp-looking side of it doesn't fair well. I don't bet 2nd half lines, because I can't get a handle on how the lines are created and I can't step out of the fishthink that you've displayed in your original post.
That's the real key here. The "analysis" in your OP is fishthink. When my sportsbetting cook friends or relatives talk about a bet, it sounds like what you wrote out. "they'll step it up at home." "Last year when these teams played...." "They'll slow it down in the 2nd half" All these statements that, well, you can't really argue with, but mean nothing.