About the model
What Tipoff Edge is and how the numbers are made.
Tipoff Edge publishes college basketball predictions from a statistical model, every game day, all season. It started as a spreadsheet and now runs automatically.
How a prediction is made
Each Division I team gets an offense and a defense rating built from the four factors of basketball: shooting, turnovers, offensive rebounding and free throws, for the team and for what its opponents manage against it. The rating is then adjusted for strength of schedule, measured from actual game results so a team that has played tough opponents gets credit for it, and the home team gets a home-court edge (none at neutral sites). Early in the season last year’s numbers fade out as each team plays games.
The gap between the two ratings becomes a projected margin and a projected score. A strong pick is a game where that gap is large. An upset pick is one where the model disagrees with the betting favorite. An O/U play is a game where the model’s projected total is well off the posted over/under.
Best Bets
The Best Bets page compares the model to the current betting lines and lists the single bets and parlays where the model’s chance of winning beats the price. The top single bets lock in each morning and are graded from the final score, so the record is what the page actually showed, not a highlight reel.
The record is public
Every pick is written down before tip-off and never changed. The Results page shows each graded game with the projected and actual scores. No pick is ever removed.
Data
Team statistics, schedules, scores and betting lines come from CollegeBasketballData. Live scores on the Today page come from ESPN. Team logos belong to the schools.
Please read this part
Everything here is for information and entertainment. It is not betting advice, and a model that is right two-thirds of the time is wrong one game in three. Never bet money you can’t afford to lose. You must be of legal age to gamble where you live. If gambling is a problem for you or someone you know, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER (US).