NCAA Betting - Upsets and Point Shaving

Early Round Upsets and Championship Blowouts

"In equilibrium play of a two-round tournament we find that underdogs exert more effort in the opening round while favorites save more effort for the final. Ability differences between players are therefore compressed in the opening round so upsets are more likely, and amplified in the final so blowouts are more likely."

Point Shaving: Corruption in NCAA Basketball

"Point-spread betting on NCAA basketball yields incentives for players and gamblers that are both asymmetric and highly non-linear, thereby encouraging mutually beneficial effort manipulation through "point shaving". This paper assesses game outcomes and point spreads from over 40,000 games between 1989 and the present, finding that there exists a "prima facie" case that point shaving is surprisingly widespread."

Essentially games early in the tournament with wide point spreads are less likely to cover than ones later in the tournament. Both are interesting papers but especially with the Point Shaving paper difficult to make money on.