What are you exactly looking for at Kenpom when finding an edge? Are you paying for their premium service where they predict scores and betting at lines where you see enough of a margin in the score based on the line to make a bet or are you looking at certain stats that literally everyone can see and comparing between teams?
I'll be honest, I have no idea what stats to look at to put into some kind of formula to determine an edge a team has over another. I think a part is points per possession and than estimating how many points you think a team will make in a game based on pace of play. How many games need to be played though to determine a median for pace of play and points per possession?
I think most people just look at stats and make estimations based on how they have seen teams play on tv to justify their bets in hope that it will win. Hardly anyone truly knows how to make a true line on a game by predicting scores for both teams before going into a game based on rosters and coaching styles.
Sorry for the long reply.
So what I use KenPom for is not the scores he predicts. I agree using his estimated scores are useless. I think he's only 48% right on his predictions which makes sense that he's close to only 50/50 since a lot of books use his info.
I use the team pages to find info. For example tonight we have Seton Hall vs Colorado. The team pages have:
- Tempo
- FG%/3FG% both offensively and defensively
- Turnover data
- Player stats (you can see who the important guys are to the team).
- Injury info
- There schedule and results
- Experience level
- etc... a lot of stats.
I pull up Seton's page on KenPom and see that their tempo is ~66 possessions/gm while Colorado is ~69 possessions/gm. Then I go through each teams recent game history looking for simliar opponents both in terms of tempo and ranking of the team to see how they played in those games.
If I find similar opponents to their upcoming game, I'll gain some insight into how they might play, especially on totals. The same goes when looking comparing their line-ups. Do they have a 7 footer and if so how well has a team played against them. KenPom has player height and experience info.
Then I compare FG% offensive and defensive for similar recent opponents.... Etc... etc....
Basically looking for similar opponents and seeing if there is and edge in the up coming game based on those games.
There's more but you get the idea.