Miracle Covers

NCAA Lines

Continuing project from a few days ago.  Going back to the results of the first set of games we picked…Illinois 73 Yale 47, UTEP 73 New Mexico St 56,  Santa Clara 87 N Colorado 84, Kentucky 74 Washington 67, Texas Tech 103 Georgia Southern 79, UC Davis 61 Sacramento St 54.  Home team is in italics, bold team covered.  ATS Notes

1. Home teams were 3-2
2. Ranked or ranked higher teams were 2-0
3. Favorites and underdogs were 3-3

So Vegas was pretty spot on, no surprise there.  Let’s keep the train rolling.

1. Murray St (-4) @ E Kentucky
2. Arizona St (+9.5) @ Baylor
3. Rider (-5.5) @ Manhattan
4. Mercer @ Belmont
5. UCLA (17.5) @ Kansas
6. Oral Roberts (-6.5) @ Western Illinois

And as a special note I stumbled across a web site that gives out free picks on college basketball games that they throw into something I like to picture as being essentially equivalent to the Matrix and what got spit out as their number one confidence pick for tonight is…Samford as a home pick em against W Carolina.  Sure you might be only slightly certain that the W in W Carolina stands for Western, but that doesn’t matter.  Let’s see what this Matrix machine is capable of, I got 15 bucks on it.

How Far Off is Vegas on College Basketball (Probably Not Very)

New project.  I am going to take half a dozen games chosen at random from college b-ball, note the line, and note how far off Vegas was.  I am just curious enough to do this, let’s get this started and hope I don’t puss out on this after a day or two.  I’ll include games that are at neutral sites, but not ones that are confusing.  It took me about ten minutes to figure out (and I’m still not positive about this) that Duke is somehow the listed home team against Kansas St in Kansas City, MO

1. Yale (+24.5) @ Illinois
2. New Mexico St (+10) @ UTEP
3. No. Colorado (+6.5) @ Santa Clara
4. Washington (-3.5) N Kentucky
5. Georgia Southern (+22) @ Texas Tech
6. UC Davis (+1) @ Sacramento St

Now this is What I am Talking About

Good work, Allen.  I don’t mean on the picks, but on getting crap down on the site.  Any outsider reading Allen’s posts may be potentially blown away by the in-depth knowledge Allen has for such a seemingly random team as William and Mary.  He refers to them multiple times as “The Tribe.”  Did anyone else have to google search “Tribe college basketball” to figure out who the hell he was talking about?  Allen throws “Tribe” into the post like it’s the equivalent of “Orangemen,” or “Lady Vols.”  For those not in the know I am pretty sure Allen’s father went to William and Mary so keep half a thought on that when reading future posts.  Whenever Allen casually drops “Tribe” references into the conversation in the same tone as “Blue Devils,” now you know why.

Judging Allen’s picks.  I’m not going to do this often, but I feel like doing this now.

College –  The first games were solid.  I didnt see the St Johns or VCU games but both teams easily covered his teasers and picking St Johns on the road against an established program like St Marys is impressive.  Taking Baylor and s illinois looks like a case of being half awake and being too lazy to look into things and taking a couple of home favorites against seemingly weak programs.

Pros – Passing judgement on these is going to be made super easy by the fact that the games have already happened and Capt Hindsight is the one evaluating the picks.  With that said, I really like the OKC pick.  I actually went to a site to make sure Allen hadn’t made a typo and it was OKC -6 which would have seemed more accurate to me.  And obviously, Capt Hindsight is not a fan of the Clippers pick but I can say what I had said to Van yesterday.  The fact that the Clippers lost (in overtime albeit) to the Pistons at home the other night should be a red light indicator that the Clippers are not playing well at all right now.  Just throwing that out there.

Hopefully me being judgemental of Allen’s picks will not halt the relative avalanche of posts Allen has been putting up since getting on the site.  Please scrutinize the shit out of the picks I’ll be putting up.

Impulse Bets

Just for fun…here are my NBA impulse bets of the eve. Thunder +6.5 at Utah. Utah is coming off a terrific road trip where they came from behind (no pun intended) in every single win. They’ve been back in town just long enough to pat themselves on the back, call up the mistresses, and let down their guard. OK City, on the other hand, knows every W is crucial. They’ve been playing better as of late and are disappointed in last night’s defeat to the Spurs. Back to backs won’t affect this young team at this point of the season and something tells me they want to play right now. The pick: OK City +6.5
2. Clippers -2 at home to the Nets. The Clippers are too talented to lose all their games. They won’t win many, but something tells me a bad Nets team traveling across the country is right up their alley to impress the home crowd. Let’s just hope it’s not by 1 pt. The pick: Clippers -2.

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

Yes, it may be a little early for bowl commercials, but with the NFL in midseason form, college football entering rivalry/championship weekends, NBA entering early season stride, and ESPN’s 24 hour college bball marathon; it’s the perfect time to begin cataloging what is sure to be a whole lotta gambling. Let us begin:
NCAA bball-How could we forget the run William and Mary had at the end of the 2009 season? They almost beat, and definitely covered, UNC in the NIT (Oh, yeah, there was another tourney going on as well)? I didn’t forget, though. I also didn’t forget that they beat Richmond last year, either. They did lose several key players to graduation(shocking), but at a program like W&M they don’t rebuild, they reload. All joking aside, experience and home court will be with the Spiders tonight. However, playing a half within a basket of UVA on the road gave these kids all the confidence they need to know they can compete. Marcus Kitts (center) missed most of the second half due to illness and foul trouble, and perhaps their best gaurd, Kendrix Brown, was slowed due to an ankle injury. Both of these guys will be looking to redeem themselves on Monday. W&M also didn’t shoot very well. Their mantra is DEFENSE, ball control, and 3-pt jump shots. Fortunately, defense is the one thing they can control, and getting back to familiar competition in a smaller arena will make these shooters feel right at home. The pick: W&M +16

Now, if you know me, you would be very familiar with the fact that I sabotage all good picks with unnecessary, ridiculous ties to parlays and teasers. So here’s how I’ll ruin this one:
1. Tribe- +23, St Johns +11, VCU -5.5…Why, you ask? First, St Johns. Four words: Steve Lavin, ten seniors. St Mary’s better muster up all that magic from last season, and hope that the bongs were put down 3 months ago instead of 3 weeks ago. Second, VCU. VCU has consistently been a competitive mid major. I see no reasons why this won’t continue. Winthrop, however, I think is a far cry from the team that made a NCAA run several years ago. They opened this year with an unimpressive win over Queens, NC. Seriously, I’m not sure if this was a rec team, tech school, or a legitimate college bball team. I’ve lived in NC and never heard of Queens. I think it may be in Charlotte but I’m not sure. Either way, VCU should win fairly easily. The lines listed above reflect a -130 7 pt teaser. I also took Tribe +20, St Johns +8, and VCU -8.5 in a risk 40 to win 72.

Congrats to Louis

Louis raped Vegas and myself by taking Duke at 15-1, 10-1 and 9-1 (with me) to win the National Championship at different stages before the tournament started.  I would never have placed any of those bets, kudos to Louis.

Sweet 16

Here we go.

Cornell (+8.5) “@” Kentucky

So apparently whoever the higher seed is, is labeled the home team.  This Cornell line is interesting.  I actually think it is very accurate, but what makes me like Cornell here is that I feel they have a much higher chance of winning than most 8 to 9 point underdogs.  For instance, Purdue is an eight point underdog and I don’t think they have a prayer of beating Duke.

Butler (+6) “@” Syracuse

I think this line is a bit low, it is a continuation of what seems like a season-long trend of over-valuing Butler and under-valuing Syracuse.  I would personally have this at a whisker under double digits.

Xavier “@” Kansas State (under 154)

I am basing this entirely on a four second blurb I saw the other day on one of the networks where a commentator said Kansas St defense was awesome but he wasn’t sure where they were going to get points from in subsequent rounds.  That, combined with a pretty hefty number of 154 makes me like the under.  That is my entire reasoning.

Northern Iowa (+1) “@” Michigan St

I have Michigan St in the final four of my brackets so they damn well better beat these guys.  I know Lucas is out, but the Mich St offense was scoring (when they could shoot the ball) just fine the other day without him.  The thing that makes me nervous is that in the final minutes of the Maryland game, Maryland would trap and Mich St had no answers.  In fact I watched a replay of the game and if you watch, Maryland takes the trap off when they go ahead by one with like 38 seconds to go.  I know hindsight is easy, but they should NEVER have taken the full-court pressure off.  Mich St would have been toast.  Instead, the Spartans go down and score on their next two possessions with no trap to beat.  With that being said, this is why they pay Tom Izzo the big bucks.  It’s up to him to prepare a makeshift game plan.  A team without a point guard is a shell of itself (see Texas), but Izzo is one of a very select group of coaches who I feel can figure something out.

Purdue (+8) “@” Duke

This game could be an absolute blowout in my opinion.  If Duke is suspect, Purdue is that to the nth degree with Hummel out.  This game continues Duke’s stroll.

Big East Fail

Absolutely nothing doing on these Sweet 16 or NIT games. Butler looks to have peaked at +7.5 against Syracuse. It was a lean for me at that number, I’d have played it at 8, but it’s back down to 6.5 and a pass like the rest of the games. Northern Iowa is +1.5 against a Lucas-less Michigan State but 1) the numbers aren’t showing this as a great play and 2) I’m not sure how much this line is overrating the Kansas game. Nothing stands out on totals either, but I haven’t looked in depth.

Two stories today:

From The Daily Fix:

What makes the Big East’s start so poor is that the selection committee gave top-three seeds to five of its teams, suggesting that those five should have been good bets to reach the Sweet 16. That makes the 6-6 record even worse than if the eight teams all had mediocre seeds.

Overall, the Big East’s seeds could have been expected to collect 6.5 first-round wins and 3.9 berths in the Sweet 16. Instead they collected four and two, respectively, for letdowns of -2.5 and -1.9 — or 39% and 49%, respectively. In absolute terms, the Big East was by far the most disappointing conference. The SEC’s four representatives won two first-round games, compared to an expected 2.9 — but those two winners, Kentucky and Tennessee, also won in the second round to exceed overall expectations for the conference. And the Big 12 had two Sweet 16 teams, compared to an expectation of 2.9, but did outperform slightly in the first round, with five wins compared to an expectation of 4.9. In percentage terms, Conference USA and the Western Athletic Conference were worse, with neither league having a single tournament win, but neither could have been expected to have a Sweet 16 entrant.

Notes from the NCAA Hoops Head Coach Meat Market (Sports Economist)

Welcome to the sausage making factory, hoops fans. Former St. John’s coach Norm Roberts was unable to sign big name recruits from the Big Apple. Why? He played by the rules. Some of the quotes in this article are shocking. “You got to hustle here, bend some rules or do something…” Russel Smith, a coach with the New York Gauchos, a prominent NYC AAU team. “At St. John’s, they’re not getting certain types of players because they’re doing things the right way.” Kenny Wilcox, head coach at a junior college in Brooklyn.

More Tourney Talk

We clinched our Big East under with Pittsburgh losing to Xavier in the late game yesterday. That leaves the maximum Big East wins available at 15 and even that would require Syracuse meeting West Virginia in the championship game. It more than makes up for a disappointing round two gambling-wise. Of course, even though my bracket was one of the losers in the kickass Maryland-Michigan St. game, it’s still worth replaying their final 22 seconds below.

It’s also worth noting that 12-seed Cornell (+9 versus Kentucky Thursday) absolutely shredded two of the better defenses in the country in Temple and Wisconsin over the weekend. Cornell is the top 3-point shooting team in the country, but unlike other top 3-point teams Utah St. and BYU haven’t hit a dry spell yet. Kentucky has a very good defense and Cornell will need to rebound and continue to shoot well to have a chance.

Just got going on MLB season win totals, hope to have those up in the next week or so as the NCAAs (and NIT) are winding down.

Lastly, the Onions Award for the 2010 tournament will be given for this shot, and I can’t think of any circumstance that would cause me to change my mind.