Record-keepers for basketball help bettors track winning, losing streaks

5 November 2009

By Howard Schwartz

Basketball bettors who are disciplined, who manage their money, keep careful records and anticipate when a team might be fresher or fatigued based on scheduling or travel, are likely to survive and flourish financially. Following a team's surprisingly good road performance or anticipating a key conference battle is part of the discipline. Two new arrivals for the 2009-10 season, Marc Lawrence's Playbook Basketball Stat & Log Workbook (320 pages, plastic spiralbound, $34.95) and the RME NCAA Men's Basketball Workbook (242 pages, plastic spiralbound, $26), fit the bill for bettors who want to look back or ahead as the season progresses. Both books are 8x11 in size.

Lawrence's Playbook has both pro and college material. For the pros it provides three years of past performance including lines and totals with room to record the results of every game to be played this season. The recordkeeping section includes the date, day and location, score, whether the team covered, won straight up or against the line and if the game went over or under the number.

There are also summaries of how teams did in the past in certain situations. For example, how Cleveland did for the past four years against conference foes as favorite or dog, home and away or in totals and how Cleveland did off a win or off an underdog win or back-to-back win or loss are indicated.

A chart also shows how a team did straight up or against the line each month last season.

For the colleges, you can see the team's schedule, day, date and location of games including tournaments and there's a two-year pointspread history (no totals); with each college's Web site, name of the coach and number of returning starters.

The RME NCAA Men's Basketball Workbook is for colleges only, with room to keep records, a summary of how a team did last year as road or home dog, home or road favorite and how often the team went over or under, plus how a team did after a win or loss or after covering or failing to cover. There are no pointspread histories, game by game from previous years.

The team's Web site is listed, with the coach.

Do remember because of television commitments, weather and other factors, schedules are subject to change.