The New Year marks the end of college basketball’s so-called preseason. Now it’s up to us bettors to take what we’ve seen in non-conference games and apply it to the regular season. The efficiency stats and the early ATS results suggest these five teams will be hitting the pay window hard in 2008.

New Mexico (12-2 SU, 11-2 ATS): Outplaying Mountain West rivals UNLV.

Drake (10-1 SU, 7-0 ATS): Not the team we expected to come out of the Missouri Valley. Upset Wichita State on the road.

Northern Colorado (6-7 SU, 9-2-1 ATS): Team rebounding and the fine work of JUCO transfer Jabril Banks holding things together in Tad Boyle’s second year as coach.

Marquette (10-1 SU, 4-2 ATS): Upset Wisconsin and nearly beat Duke. Third in Pomeroy rankings, but just No. 11 in the polls.

North Carolina (13-0 SU, 10-1 ATS): Watch out for a chalk avalanche; otherwise, the Heels could be scary good.