College basketball

Teams practice in October and play exhibition games before the opener. The regular season usually starts in early November and runs to early March. Conference tournaments usually run in March.

The NCAA Tournament is a single-elimination bracket, so one loss ends a team's run. It usually runs through March, and the championship game is in early April. The exact dates change each year.

A play is any event in the feed, such as a shot, a rebound, a turnover or a foul. Play-by-play lists them in order, with the game situation.

Scoring matches the NBA: a two-point field goal is worth two, a three-pointer is worth three, and a free throw is worth one. A game is two 20-minute halves. For example, three 2-point baskets and two free throws make 8 points.

An Antic Rating is a player's score for one game on a 0 to 10 scale. It reflects what the player did and how much their plays helped the team win, so it describes that game, not the season.

Above 10 is reserved for outstanding games. Antic also gives each game a game rating, from how much the win chance swung. Ratings describe what happened: they are not picks or predictions.

College basketball props are player stat lines: points, rebounds, assists, made three-pointers and points plus rebounds. Most are over or under a number.

Antic never places bets. If betting stops being fun, set limits or call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Polls ask who wins before tip-off, who covers the spread where there is one, and who wins the second half at halftime. Votes show the split. The AP Top 25 is a separate ranking of teams, voted on by a national panel of sports media, and you can open it from the standings.

Lineups show the starters once they are posted, then the bench. Positions are point guard (PG), shooting guard (SG), small forward (SF), power forward (PF) and center (C). Each row shows the position, season numbers, rating and injury status.

Standings are kept by conference. Each conference sets its own tiebreakers, and most start with head-to-head results. The steps after that vary by conference, so check that conference's rules for the season.