THE MUST-HAVE BOOK FOR BETTING MARCH MADNESS WWW.STATFOX.COM WWW.FOXSHEETS.COM VOLUME 13 - NUMBER 1 TOURNAMENT GUIDE 2011 DUKE, KANSAS, OHIO STATE AND PITT BRING THE HEAT! PLUS IN-DEPTH CAPSULES FOR All 68 TEAMS $10.99 CAN S U $9.99 BETTING TRENDS BY SEED, ROUND AND CONFERENCE Meet the : Betting the VegasSportsMasters Big Dance? the 2-Eyed Jacks of Basketball KELSO STURGEON, The Dean of Las Vegas handicappers, is a pioneer 2-eyed Jack: His TRENDS WIN picks have out-earned the Dow Jones 35 years running & cleared 245 units last year! ZILCH. His legendary big game plays have been huge moneymakers this season, winning 12 of the last 15 for and making $60,000 for a $100 player. Kelso swept his three Games of the Year during last year’s March Madness… 100 UNIT COLLEGE TOURNEY GAME OF YEAR: WE WIN MONEY! Texas El Paso (-10) Central Fla. WON 76-54 100 UNIT NCAA TOURNAMENT GAME OF YEAR: Maryland (-9) Houston WON 89-77 You can’t find a trend worth beans. 50 UNIT NIT GAME OF YEAR: Dayton (-2½) North Carolina WON 79-68 Number 1 seeds that go 22-18 in the first round? Number 12’s that upset number 5’s – 11-29? Small conference sleepers? Media super star WAYNE ROOT became rich Half court deadeye dicks? Bangers that might outmuscle a and famous by spotting the edge between the real number and the betting number. Root better team? Hey, a zillion other guys have spotted holds every known record in Vegas for upsets, the same “edge” you have! has been clocked by The Sports Monitor at or Trends and tendencies will get you nowhere. You have to near the top every year. Wayne has won the NCAA Tourney 25 out see with two eyes: Not only the athletic matchups. But the of 26 times and he’s about to do it again. Last year Wayne perceived edge that may be hidden in the betting line. played .500 in the NCAA Opening rounds, then went on VegasSportsMasters a tear through rest of the Tourney, going 14-5-1 for 73.7% That’s why you need the . We are down the stretch. He was 6-2-1 in the Sweet-16, a perfect the two eyed jacks of basketball. Maybe you should know 4-0 in the Elite-8, split the Final Four, & Won the Champi- us better! onship when Butler covered the 7-point spread. Do these fellows sound like they might have ➞➞➞ NICK BOGDANOVICH. As linesmaker at the knowledge and savvy to see a game front, back & sideways? CAL-NEVA Sports Book, NICK is right Then maybe you’ll like their... there where the basketball number and the betting number intersect. Nick sees all in- Special Introductory Offer: coming action. Knows who all the best NCAA Tournament Selections from the opinions like! Imagine – an expert on their VegasSportsMasters – 2/3rds Off! side of the counter working for YOU! 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Green Valley Pkwy, #848 * Henderson, NV 89014-2120 consecutive season with 4-figure profits. 2011 TOURNAMENT GUIDE EDGE 2011 TOURNAMENT GUIDE StatFox Staff Selections 3 StatFox Forecaster Bracket Selections 4 StatFox Power Rating Bracket Selections 6 StatFox Outplay Factor Bracket Selections 8 Handicapping Insight: Trend Madness 10 East Region Team-by-Team Breakdowns 16 West Region Team-by-Team Breakdowns 24 Southwest Region Team-by-Team Breakdowns 32 Southeast Region Team-by-Team Breakdowns 40 Sponsored Content: Mistakes the Public Makes 48 MANAGING EDITOR Welcome to the fourth annual edition of the StatFox Edge College Basketball Scott Gramling Tournament Handicapping Guide, the publication about which world-renowned USA Today EXECUTIVE EDITOR oddsmaker Danny Sheridan proclaimed, “Anyone serious about their brackets or tournament Jeff Makinen handicapping should be sure to pick up a Tournament Guide from StatFox.com . nothing I’ve seen beats it.” While it’s certainly great to have such a respected personality as Mr. Sheridan CONTRIBUTING WRITERS singing our praises, our past results are what speak most loudly. The StatFox Forecaster came Dave Bartman Gary Bennett through yet again last season, nailing the eventual national champion Duke and doing so in a Brian Graham 2010 season where few pundits were expecting the Blue Devils to outlast such powerhouses as Kentucky and Kansas. SYSTEMS ANALYST John Mitchell If you’ve been with us in the past, you may noticed that we’ve revamped the look of this year’s CREATIVE DIRECTOR edition in an effort to make it more reader-friendly—we’ve designed the publication to be a Ian Knowles handy resource to which you can constantly refer throughout the three weeks of the Tourna- ment. What hasn’t changed is the substance, as we’re back again this year with all of the SENIOR DesIGNER popular pieces to which readers have become accustomed. You’ll find our staff selections with Anthony Scerri a turn of the page, and those are followed by our strength indicator brackets, each of which now appears on a self-contained bracket that goes across two pages. Starting on page 16 are EDITORIAL DIRECTION 10Ten Media team-by-team breakdowns, separated by regions, so that you can get a feel for teams’ relative strengths before determining who’s capable of pulling off this year’s big upsets. PUBLISHER Duke Dosik Sandwiched in between is our popular “Trend Madness” feature, which breaks down everything The 2011 StatFox Edge you would possibly want to know when it comes to the history of the Tournament. One of the College Basketball Tourna- many things that makes these three weeks of college basketball so compelling is the fact that ment Handicapping Guide there’s no one proven formula to be able to predict success—and because of that, there are is published by Daily Racing Form LLC, 708 nearly as many theories as there are people who will fill out brackets this week. Some of the Third Avenue, 12th Floor, fine gentlemen who support this publication via advertising, for example, feel one way about New York, NY 10017. trends. While we at StatFox fully know that the past alone doesn’t predict the future, it is our All rights reserved. belief that the smart handicapper should arm himself with as much information and data as Printed in USA. possible before making the most informed decision based on a variety of factors. I urge you to check out our “Trend Madness” feature, and also to check us out online at StatFox.com and THIS PUBLICATION IS NOT SPONSORED OR AUTHORIZED FoxSheets.com. And I wish you all the best for an enjoyable and profitable 2011 Tournament. BY ANY ATHLETIC CONFER- ENCE NOR HOLDER OF ANY TRADEMARK OR SERVICE MARK. ALL TEAM NAMES AND Now go get ’em! LOGOS ARE TRADEMARKS OF THE TEAMS INDICATED. THIS PUBLICATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATION AS TO WHETHER ONLINE GAMBLING IS LEGAL IN YOUR JURISDIC- TION. PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES. ALL INFORMATION IS FOR NEWS MATTER ONLY. Scott Gramling Managing Editor www.FoxSheets.com 1 SCORE BIG THIS YEAR! THE 2011 OSGA.COM NCAA TOURNEY BRACKET CONTEST! 2011 TOURNAMENT GUIDE PRESENTS STAFF PICKS R E st 2011 NCAA TOURNAMENT Y A A R C N SELEcTioNS E E A RY A StatFox POW StatFox OUTPL StatFox DAVE StatFox SCOTT StatFox BRI StatFox for StatFox G SWEET 16 EAst REGION: CLEVELAND OHIO STAte OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE EAst REGION: TAMPA KENTUckY W VIRGINIA KENTUCKY KENTUCKY KENTUCKY KENTUCKY KENTUCKY EAst REGION: CLEVELAND SYRACUse SYRACUSE XAVIER SYRACUSE SYRACUSE SYRACUSE SYRACUSE EAst REGION: CHARLOtte WASHINGTON N CAROLINA WASHINGTON WASHINGTON N CAROLINA N CAROLINA WASHINGTON West REGION: CHARLOtte DUke DUKE DUKE TENNESSEE DUKE DUKE DUKE West REGION: TULSA ARIZONA TEXAS ArIZONA TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS West REGION: WASHINGTON MIssOURI CONNECTICUT CONNECTICUT MISSOURI CINCINNATI CONNECTICUT CONNECTICUT West REGION: TUcsON SAN DIEGO St SAN DIEGO ST TEMPLE SAN DIEGO ST SAN DIEGO ST SAN DIEGO ST SAN DIEGO ST SOUTHwest REGION: TULSA KANSAs KANSAS KANSAS KANSAS KANSAS KANSAS KANSAS SOUTHwest REGION: DeNVer LOUISVILLe LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE SOUTHwest REGION: CHICAGO PURDUe PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE SOUTHwest REGION: CHICAGO