If you’re planning to bet Over in either of Saturday’s Final Four matchups, it might be worth a second thought.
Both of the NCAA basketball semifinals (Oklahoma/Villanova and Syracuse/North Carolina) will be played in Houston’s NRG Stadium – a venue designed for football, not basketball.
Why does that matter? Well, compared to a standard basketball arena, a football stadium is downright cavernous. That means the backdrop for shooters will be much different Saturday (and in Monday’s national championship game as well) than usual.
Check out this graphic from ESPN.com, which shows the points per game teams averaged in the past five Final Fours. Note how few points were scored the last time the Final Four was contested in Houston.
It doesn’t help that modern-day basketball teams have become so dependent on 3-point shooting, which would likely suffer the most from a poor backdrop.
The 3-Pointapocalypse is upon us. 3 teams that take 40%+ of FGAs from deep in Final 4 (Nova, OU, Cuse). 1 before that in past decade (VCU).
— Luke Winn (@lukewinn) March 28, 2016
The potential for shooting struggles this weekend is obviously no secret. Early action on the totals in both games has been heavily on the Under, most notably in Oklahoma/Villanova where the total has dropped 6 points since the opener.
But when there’s this much attention on a certain betting angle, it’s always possible that the betting markets overreact. Might that actually open up more value on the Over?
“Three-point shooting (in NRG Stadium) has been poor over the years, and offence hasn’t been the greatest,” wrote popular NCAA basketball handicapper Nropp, noting that teams playing at NRG Stadium averaged 1.03 points per possession from 2008-11, but 0.95 points per possession since 2011. “Not sure if the setup has changed or what, but I don’t see it playing a big part.”