College Basketball Power Rating Factors

At Circa Sports, our oddsmakers use our college basketball power ratings to determine what the point spread should be on a given game. They are raw numbers and must be adjusted each game for any relevant factors that may affect the point spread including injuries, home-court advantage, and unfavorable travel spots Below is an example of a game that we will make a point spread on. 

How Point Spread Adjustments Work

Location: Chicago, IL

GONZAGA POWER RATING: 100.5

DUKE POWER RATING: 89.5

In this example, the game is being played in Chicago, IL, and therefore would receive no adjustment due to there being no perceived location advantage for either team.   If there were any injuries or one of the teams was playing back-to-back road games, for example, you would adjust your numbers further.  In the above example, we will assume the game is in a completely neutral location and that both teams are 100% healthy and are on 3 day’s rest.  This would result in the following line:

POINT SPREAD: GONZAGA -11

If the game was in fact at Gonzaga or Duke’s home court,  we would probably weight home court 2.5-3 pts depending on where the game is at.  If the game was at Duke, Gonzaga had an injured player who we calculated was worth 2 pts to the line, and Duke had played the night before we would make the following adjustments:

GONZAGA RATING: 100.5

INJURY: -2.0

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE: -3.0

SPOT: +2.0

DUKE RATING: 89.5

POINT SPREAD:  GONZAGA -8