Which has a bigger bang for your sportsbetting buck?

Pro basketball is rife with gifted athletes, sophisticated systems of play and a significant dose of predictability when it comes to forecasting the outcome of games on any given night, particularly when you factor in home-court advantage, the collective health of a team’s key players, and recent results.

But college basketball is where the real money can be made. Frankly, the college games are the easier of the two brands to handicap, especially when you delve in to the mid-majors and low majors where the lines can be particularly soft. In fact, only one of last year’s Top-10 ATS college basketball teams came from a major conference, and that was the national champion Florida Gators.

When you consider that there are more than 300 teams competing in the college basketball Division 1 ranks around the NCAA, and well over 80 percent of them have had lines posted so far this season, well, ‘thar’s got to be some gold in them thar hills’. Factoring in the sheer volume of betting lines, a sharp handicapper has ample opportunity to grind out a healthy profit.

But sharps still have to approach the college game differently than they would at the professional level. For example, the college athlete is a strange animal compared to his pro counterparts. His skills are less polished, his mental attitude is subject to all manner of distraction, and you never know when he might miss a game due to some bizarre rules infraction.

Coaching is therefore critical to a college basketball program’s success. Legends like Bobby Knight or Mike Krzyzewski draw talent to their school that arrives willing to blindly subscribe to an established system of play. Success breeds success, making it easier to predict the performance of the higher profile programs year after year.

Not that the pros aren’t worth looking at. Far from it; the inconsistency you see in the NBA from one season to the next is a potential goldmine for sharp cappers. Professional basketball players age and decline, and generally speaking, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. A veteran-laden team like the Miami Heat can go from national champions to scrambling for the playoffs at the snap of a finger – or a tendon.

Beyond the bitter cold of February there’s the solace of March Madness. It can be especially maddening if your alma mater doesn’t make the cut or bombs out early even though they were a No. 1 seed.

The biggest lock for a No.1 seed in the tournament is the Florida Gators. The defending champs saw all five of their starters return and they’ve been the ranked at No.1 in the nation for most of the season. The Bracketologists (word of the year, 2007?) could chisel Florida into a bracket on a stone tablet right now and would be able to use it on Selection Sunday.

The biggest battle for a No. 1 seed looks like it will come out of the Big Ten. You’ve got Greg Oden and the Ohio State Buckeyes battling Alando Tucker and the Wisconsin Badgers for top spot in the conference. Right now it’s a dead-heat with both teams clinging to 8-1 conference records. If both teams can run the table through the Big Ten until the end of the month it will set the table for a huge conference showdown between the Buckeyes and the Badgers at Ohio State on February 25. The winner of this game could very well lock up a No. 1 seed in the tournament.

The Gators may rule the SEC, but the rest of the conference is practically one giant bubble. The Kentucky Wildcats and Vanderbilt Commodores appear to be on their way to locking up tourney invites, but the rest of the conference has either had their invitations already shredded or they’ve been written in pencil so they’re easily erasable. The two biggest bubble teams are Alabama and Tennessee. Injury has cut down the star player on both teams this season and they’re going to need to either get healthy or find a way to win without their best player to make a tourney run.

The Crimson Tide has been dealt a hefty blow with point guard Ronald Steele hobbled by nagging injuries most of the season. The Tide isn’t done yet, but they’ll need to build on their 4-4 conference record quickly to get over the hump. Tennessee has had their own injury problems with sharpshooting guard Chris Lofton, and the result has been blowout losses to Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida. The Volunteers are sinking fast and may be too far gone to mount a tournament drive if they don’t right the ship soon.

They could probably rename the Big Ten the Big Three this season, because that’s all there is to fear from the conference. After plenty of schools saw a number of talented seniors move on, there isn’t much bite left in the Big Ten.

The two biggest threats are pretty easy to pick out. They’re the two teams that have been at or near the top of the Top 25 most of the season: Ohio State and Wisconsin. Ohio State is a Final Four favorite thanks to freshman center Greg Oden. The Badgers have their own Final Four aspirations with Alando Tucker and Kammron Taylor leading the way. The only other Big Ten team with a chance at anything is Indiana, and that’s a big stretch. The Hoosiers have some talent in D.J. White and Roderick Wilmont, but it doesn’t look like enough to get them very far.

Last year’s Big Ten leaders may be lucky to even qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Michigan State has gone from National Championship favorite to the back pages. Losing four starters, including the terrifying trio of Maurice Ager, Shannon Brown and Paul Davis will have that effect. The Fighting Illini have also hit a bump in the road this season. After two successful seasons that even saw them come one win from a national title two years ago, Illinois has entered rebuilding mode. The Illini still have a lot of holdovers from a year ago, but they’re having a tough time finding solid replacements for James Augustine and Dee Brown.

The Big Ten’s other NCAA tourney team from a year ago, Iowa, doesn’t look ready to make another run at a tourney spot. The Hawkeyes also had a lot of roster turnover that left them without two of their top scorers and their No.1 defender. Iowa was bounced in the first round of the NCAA last year with Greg Brunner, Jeff Horner and Erek Hansen all in tow. Without them they won’t even get that far.

March Madness betting starts up pretty darn quick. March Madness lines and odds here.