Submitted by rsteel on
As with everything else this year it will be a different feel to the college basketball season that gets underway Wednesday.
Early in the season you want to look for teams that have had low turnover of key personnel. Look for teams that have a strong experienced point guard. This is the equivalent to a quarterback in football. With the inability of teams to travel i.e. Australia, Canada this year NO teams with have an advantage of these pre-season tournaments. However you should still search out teams with continuity in their coaching staff and their key roster players. This chemistry will help certain teams get off to better starts than others.
As you know in college basketball unlike the NBA there are many fouls and scramble points regardless of the score late in games. Sometimes over 15% of the total points scored in a game can come from the last 2 minutes of a college basketball game. A dependable, experienced point guard who will not turn the ball over and has a good free throwing shooting percentage will help your ticket to close out games and extend leads rather than being exposed to back door covers.
There is nothing more frustrating than having handicapped a college basketball game to perfection only to rip up your ticket from the last 2 minutes of scramble points. Imagine having a team -5.0 you are up by 9.0 heading down the stretch only to win by 3 on the final score simply because your team could not make foul shots to extend the lead. It happens and it happens often so make this a big part of your pre-game analysis.