Poison Ivy Trends

With the college basketball season now in full conference swing, let’s examine a handicapping theory that yields a much better return on your investment than the banks do these days.

It deals with teams playing back-to-back days without rest during the regular season. In particular, Ivy League games noted for playing back-to-back contests on Friday and Saturday nights.

What we’re looking to target on is how brain-chain teams fare the second night of these affairs no-rest affairs. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the more suitable situations.

Creaky Double Digit Chalk

According to our database, the worst role for these teams is as double-digit home favorites, where they are just 62-94-3 ATS overall heading into this year since the 1990-91 season.

Even worse, double-digit home chalk with a .687 or greater win percentage are just 23-45 ATS.

Digging deeper, if these tired .687 or greater hosts are laying doubles digits at home facing an opponent that is coming off consecutive losses they dissolve faster than an Alka Seltzer tablet in a glass of ice-cold water, going 3-22 ATS. Now that’s cold.

Fool Me Twice

Revenge serves as a major motivating tool in these no-rest Ivy League matchups, especially when we bring a visiting team in as a dog in with double-revenge incentive from a pair of losses suffered last season.

That’s confirmed by a 54-36-2 ATS mark when these wonder-boys are on the road, including 43-23-1 ATS when taking seven or more points when fueled with double-revenge incentive.

Better yet, bring these hungry revengers in off consecutive losses as 7-point or larger dogs and they make the Dean’s List, going 24-8 ATS (see Brown +12 against Princeton earlier this season).

Triskaidekaphobia Road

Our third and final theorem occurs when these non-rested Ivy Leaguers are on the Saturday night road off a loss of 13 or more points.

Dress them up as dogs (or pick) in this role and they are 79-61-3 ATS, including 41-24 ATS when taking 10 or more points.

Bring them into these same games with a win percentage of .400 or less and they ratchet up to 36-14 ATS, including 19-2 ATS when taking 17 or more points.

There you have it, the perfect calamine lotion for Ivy League teams in search of a remedy for a little extra Saturday scratch.