Miracle Covers

Wednesday

Pair of losers yesterday in NCAA.  GA Tech managed to lose the second half by 20+ points after being down one at half and Vanderbilt miracle covered in a loss.  Will try and do better today.  Today’s leans posted across all sports with plays to follow in bold:

NCAAB: Richmond +2, Georgia +11.5

NBA: Golden State -6

NHL: Rangers +170

Decisions on plays in an hour or so.

UPDATE: Rangers are playing a Western team, so they are out.  I can’t keep the conferences straight for hockey, much less the divisions.  UGA is the only play for me tonight.

Monday

Back to normal service starting today.  A quick note on the Chiefs-Colts game as it was example #5,290 why not to follow big lines moves in football.  This is doubly true for the NFL over college.  Anything over a point is significant and should generally be avoided.  The only sticking point on the KC line was that it did not hit ‘3’ on either side, but a 4.5 point move is ridiculous regardless.  Either take the other team or pass on the game entirely.

Nothing doing on the college game tonight so I will roll my perfect bowl season into next year even though I took off the better part of the games.  In NBA, Minnesota -7 @ Philadelphia.  NHL has a light schedule today. I was considering Calgary in the late game but they are playing too terribly for me over the past few weeks.

More tomorrow…

Loser Friday

Losers all the way around yesterday.  I figured the over would be safe after a 4-point line move from 166 to 162 yesterday but it wasn’t close as the Under easily came in even on the reduced number.  Both hockey plays were losers as well, Calgary in OT on a questionable penalty & powerplay goal and Columbus setting leads of 3-0 and 4-2 on fire before this happened:

No hockey tonight as I don’t want any part of the Islanders tonight.  Florida is out of conference and Vancouver is on a back-to-back.  Pair of basketball plays however:

NBA: Brooklyn -6 @ Philadelphia

NCAAB: UNO/Minnesota Over 153.5 

Thursday

Washington won outright in our only action yesterday in a generally uninteresting game.  I have two NBA futures open and neither is going well at the 1/3 mark of the NBA season: Bucks OVER 28 and Nets to win the Atlantic at -158.  I took the Nets play basically because I thought the Knicks would be anywhere from average to not good and I figured no one else could feasibly win that division (TOR, BOS, PHI are the others).  My Milwaukee play had everything to do with their old owner essentially forbidding their GM to tank and start over, desiring a “competitive” team instead (Read: 8th seed contender & 1st round fodder).  The only problem is their entire starting lineup has been injured, and when you takeaway a few starters from a projected 28 win team you get the 2013 Milwaukee Bucks.

This brings me to last night’s game in Milwaukee versus the Knicks.  The Bucks had a chance to win in regulation, and were gifted another overtime thanks to this disaster of a play.  Note Walt Frazier channeling his inner Loubacca with this call.  Just brilliant.  Plays later per usual.

UPDATE: Actual gambling and lots of hockey on the agenda…

NCAAB: Duke/UCLA Over 162.5

NHL: Columbus +135 @ Philadelphia, Calgary +125 @ Detroit. Edmonton is an option for those looking for more action, but I am going to pass on them at around +170 at Colorado tonight.

Update Tuesday

No plays yesterday though Winnipeg hit the mythical, magical 35% public # cutoff and went on to win 3-2.  They are technically a West Coast team playing East but the Jets used to be the Thrashers of Atlanta and Columbus of Ohio used to be in the “West.”  Got it?

Plays Tonight: NHL Florida +118 @ Toronto, NCAAB Wichita St @ Alabama +2

Updates on how I am doing:

NCAA hoops Sides (Not for real $) 7-8-2 -1.8 (Closing this out as I am onto real $ now, albeit very sporadically)
NCAA hoops Sides (Real $) 1-0 +1.0

NCAA Hoops Totals are 7-5 +1.65

NCAA Football Regular Season: 10-11 -1.47 (Also closed as we are onto Bowl Season)

NFL Teasers 1-4 -3.2

NHL 17-12 +11.57

NFL: 15-12 +5.85

NBA: 2-2 -0.1

An Epiphany

While watching the Islanders vomit all over themselves and concede goals at a rate approaching the warmup goalies the past few nights, I started digging into my hockey system which has been excellent up until the last week or so.  The premise for said system was to sort out the games that should in theory be coinflips with plus odds since regular season hockey games have one of the smaller home-field (ice?) advantages of the major sports.  Anything approaching a .500 record with all games in plus odds should be well in the money if executed correctly.

Turns out I screwed up by including non-conference games in the sample.  This eliminates any exceedingly lengthy road trips in terms of days as teams only head to each coast a few times a year.  It also removes the NBA-like problem of having a superior conference face off against a weaker one.  The non-conference games for us this season went 0-4 and over the past few seasons are barely breakeven with a well under .500 record.  I don’t need that kind of losing & variance for such a small return, and it’s not like these plays are filled with lots of quality teams already.

So no more non-conference games for me and that should help clean things up a bit.  Islanders/Ducks, Flyers/Blackhawks and Islanders/Coyotes from the last week would all be excludes going forward.  And even with those plays we are still at 4-4 +1.6 for the month.

Rockets also lost both plays last night, though I have been testing most of the week and I’m confident in those setups, especially the moneyline plays.

NHL is definitely out today but I haven’t been doing basketball long enough to tell if there will be anything there or not.  Updates later if at all.

Speed Post

Utah won by a lot last night and the Flyers lost by a near equivalent margin.  Ohio St. under was a close winner as they played their bench the entire 2nd half.  I should maybe not be so nitty with the lines, but I say that every time I was going to play something and pass because of a line move that wins anyway.

NBA again tonight: Houston +2.5, also Houston +120

Hockey: Islanders +160

Wednesday

We were 30 seconds or so from a perfect Tuesday, but Tampa screwed everything up by allowing Ovechkin to score his 4th of the night and tie the game late in the 3rd period.  Tampa led 3-0 12 minutes in so it was quite the collapse to lose in the shootout.  Regardless, Colorado was a 3-1 winner and Milwaukee not only covered the 7.5 but won outright.

Two plays tonight:

NBA: Utah +7 @ Sacramento

NHL Flyers +165 @ Blackhawks

I probably should wait to see where Utah’s public # ends up but I won’t be around later to update.  Also I was just about to play Ohio St. Bryant Under 140 but the line just moved to 139 :(

Tuesday

A winning week closed with Chicago winning easily and the Islanders getting somewhat embarrassed in Anaheim.  If you want to know how to describe a shitty team, the Ducks coach gave a great example in his postgame press conference:

“We weren’t ready for them,” Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau said. “But it seemed like every time they were outplaying us, we got a goal. We hung around just long enough to get our legs, and once we got to 4-2 on the same shift, I think it took the heart out of them a little bit.”

The 4-2 he speaks of game at the end of the 2nd when New York gave up a shorthanded goal on a 3-on-1 break followed by another guy scoring from his knees all within 30 seconds of going to the break tied 2-2. Forward to much better hockey teams with two plays tonight:

Tampa Bay +130 @ Washington and Phoenix +120 @ Colorado.

I’ve also been busy the past few days and am ready to start real-life using an away team NBA system starting tonight with Milwaukee +7.5.

Also since it’s Tuesday it’s time to update my record:

NCAA hoops Sides (Not for real $) 7-8-2 -1.8
NCAA hoops Sides (Real $) 1-0 +1.0

NCAA Hoops Totals are 7-4 +2.65

NCAA Football: 10-11 -1.47

NFL Teasers 1-4 -3.2

NHL 16-9 +13.17

NFL: 12-9 +4.22