As you make college hoops bets throughout the year, part of the challenge is in predicting when teams are going to perform well and when they’re going to struggle. One of the ways that you can do this is by understanding all about the freshman wall. Freshmen often come in hot, and by the time the season churns in February, they are struggling. Why is this the case? It’s because freshmen are not used to the physical grind of a college basketball season.
With conferences being bigger than ever, travel is a huge factor in modern college hoops. In high school and on the AAU circuit, players do not have to travel multiple times per week. This can take a lot out of the average high school kid. In addition, high schoolers do not play dozens of games in a given season, and they certainly do not play with the kind of physicality that you see in college basketball. This means that the kids can hit a major wall at some point during the year. They may break out of it, but for a season, kids will see a major struggle.
Whenever you are making your picks, you will want to keep a close eye on the numbers of the hot freshmen. Duke and Kansas have struggled in covering spreads as Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins have struggled to perform. This will happen to more teams, so keep an eye out for dips in performance. If you do so, you can predict when freshmen-heavy teams will start to struggle to cover those pesky spreads.