Vegas Vice Returns for March Madness

Although conventional wisdom holds that beating a team three times in a row in a season is difficult, the point spread trends tell us that the conventional wisdom is wrong in this case, since teams that have beaten a team twice during the regular season cover the point spread in the conference tournament game at a 55% pace. Here's a chart of these statistics for the last seven years.

Revenge Factor Plan carefully this time of year
Year	Favorite Single Revenge	Favorite Double Revenge	Underdog Single Revenge	Underdog Double Revenge
1996	11-11	5-3	15-22-1	17-18
1997	15-8	3-6	15-26	12-15
1998	15-7	2-4	26-21-1	14-21
1999	9-10-1	4-7	19-28	10-20
2000	21-13	2-3	31-26-2	25-22
2001-2002	42-28	4-6-1	47-60-3	49-56-2
Totals	113-77-1	20-29	153-183-7	127-152-3

In the first or quarterfinal rounds of the tournaments on Thursday and Friday the following teams are in a Favorite Single Revenge situation:

1. Temple -2 over Richmond
2. Ohio State -1 over Iowa
3. Indiana -13 over Penn State
4. Iowa State -1 over Texas A & M
5. Texas Tech - 7 1/2 over Baylor
6. Colorado -4 over Kansas State
7. Alabama -8 1/2 Vanderbilt
8. Mississippi -2 South Carolina
9. Nevada - 6 1/2 over Louisiana Tech
10. Florida State -1 over Clemson

In tournaments, I always look for teams that have played well on the road. Almost every team plays better at home than on the road, but some teams are so bad when they're on the road that I can't trust them in a situation where they don't have the comfort of playing in their own arena. Teams like Alabama and Indiana are almost unbeatable at home, but they always seem to underperform on the road. On the other hand, Arizona and Kentucky play almost as well on the road as they do at home.

Certain teams are playing well at the end of the season, and certain teams are playing poorly. Most of the time, I reflect recent performance of a team in my weekly adjustment of power ratings, but oddsmakers may not be so quick to make the appropriate change. In my opinion, the following teams are playing well lately and merit special attention: Syracuse out of the Big East, St. Louis from Conference USA, Central Michigan from the Mid American, Xavier of the Atlantic 10, Wisconsin from the Big 10, Texas out of the Big 12, Louisiana State from the Southeastern, Boise State of the WAC, Brigham Young from the Mountain West, Arizona from the Pac 10 and Wake Forest of the ACC.