Lehigh tops Lafayette for Patriot League title
NCAA Basketball Betting Lines
03/12/2010 - Bethlehem, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - C.J. McCollum poured in a game-best 20 points to go with seven rebounds, as the top-seeded Lehigh Mountain Hawks punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament with a 74-59 victory over the third-seeded Lafayette Leopards in the championship game of the Patriot League Tournament at Stabler Arena.
Zahir Carrington added 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Mountain Hawks (22-10), who won their first Patriot League crown since 2004. The victory propels Lehigh into the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in school history (1985, 1988, 2004).
Dave Buchberger and Michael Ojo donated 13 and 11 points, respectively, for the Mountain Hawks, who set a school mark for victories in a single season with 22.
Ryan Willen tallied 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Leopards (19-13), who were making their first appearance in the Patriot League title game since 2000. Jeff Kari added 10 points off the bench in defeat.
Trailing 51-42, the Leopards ripped off eight straight points to get within one. Jim Mower capped the flurry with a three-pointer, making it a 51-50 contest with less than 11 minutes to play in the game.
But Lehigh closed the tilt on a 23-9 run to seal the victory. Carrington tallied 10 points during the burst.
Lehigh led 35-29 at the half.
Carrington's slam had the Mountain Hawks ahead 42-33 early in the second half. The Leopards were able to keep things tight by going on a 9-2 flurry, which Kari ended with a layup to make it 44-42 with 13 1/2 minutes remaining.
Lehigh then went on to score seven consecutive points to create some breathing room again. Buchberger's trey made it a 51-42 contest with 12:15 left.
Game Notes
Lafayette still has a commanding lead in the all-time series with Lehigh, 138-75....McCollum scored 16 points in the first half...Lafayette and Lehigh now hold two Patriot League crowns apiece...The Mountain Hawks shot 49.1 percent from the field, while the Leopards made 36.4 percent of their shots.
Oklahoma City, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oklahoma City Thunder rookie guard James Harden is expected to miss the next 2-to-4 weeks with a strained right hamstring. To replace Harden on the roster in the interim, the team recalled guar
<< Iowa State's Brackins to enter draft
Ames, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Iowa State junior forward Craig Brackins will
forgo his senior season and enter the 2010 NBA Draft, men's basketball coach
Greg McDermott confirmed Friday.
Brackins ranked in the top-10 in the Big 12 in bo
<< Packers ink DT Pickett to extension
Green Bay, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Green Bay Packers signed nose tackle Ryan
Pickett to a long-term extension through the 2013 season on Friday.
Pickett, 30, who has spent the last four seasons of his nine-year career with
the Packers, t
<< Packers sign Pro Bowl S Collins through 2013
Green Bay, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Green Bay Packers announced Friday that
the team has signed safety Nick Collins to a multi-year extension through the
2013 season.
Collins had been a restricted free agent, and the team previously
<< Stanford women drop Arizona, gain Pac-10 semis
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nnemkadi Ogwumike tallied a game-high 25
points with 10 rebounds as No. 2 Stanford downed Arizona, 72-52, in the
quarterfinals of the Pac-10 Tournament.
Jeanette Pohlen scored 15 points and Kay
Berea, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Browns shifted their focus at the tight end position on Friday, signing unrestricted free agent Benjamin Watson to a multi-year contract and also releasing Steve Heiden. Financial terms of the
Bobcats' Wallace leaves game with ankle injury >>
Charlotte, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Charlotte Bobcats forward Gerald Wallace left
Friday night's game against the Los Angeles Clippers with a sprained left
ankle.
With 1.5 seconds remaining in the second quarter, Wallace stole the ball fr
Onuaku day-to-day with right quadriceps injury >>
Syracuse, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Syracuse forward Arinze Onuaku is day-to-day
with a right quadriceps injury.
Onuaku was hurt in Thursday's 91-84 loss to Georgetown in the quarterfinals of
the Big East Tournament. He underwent an MRI on
Moore and Purdue down Northwestern in Big Ten quarters >>
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - E'Twaun Moore scored 28 points and JaJuan
Johnson added 22 with eight rebounds, as sixth-ranked Purdue defeated
Northwestern, 69-61, in the quarterfinals of the 2010 Big Ten Conference
Tournam
Holloway leads Xavier over Dayton in A-10 quarterfinals >>
Atlantic City, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Terrell Holloway led all scorers with 22
points to lead the No. 24 Xavier Musketeers past the Dayton Flyers, 78-73, in
the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Ten Conference Tournament.
Jordan Crawford added
Sportsbook Betting Lines
Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.
2007 NFL Football Betting Preview
“You play to win the game!”
Those are the words of notoriously intense head coach Herman Edwards. Unfortunately, from a bettors’ perspective, most coaches don’t feel that way about the NFL preseason. August is a time to evaluate young players, finalize the depth chart and pray your star players stay healthy.
The trick to making money during the exhibition schedule is identifying coaches – like Edwards – who can’t stand losing even when there's nothing on the line.
The New York Jets betting won 15 of 21 preseason games and went 14-7 against the spread (ATS) during Edwards’s five-year tenure with the club. In his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs field boss, the team improved from 0-4 to 2-2.
Identifying win-a-holics like Edwards is a good start if you plan betting the preseason – even though most say you shouldn’t ... but what the hell do they know anyway?
Here’s a brief rundown of two teams that have a habit of winning during the second-stringers’ season, and another club that has a good chance of exceeding this year.
Playing in the media hub of North America can be stressful but the press can’t write anything negative about the way Tom Coughlin’s boys play in the preseason. The Giants won and covered all four games last summer, improving their record to 7-1 both straight up (SU) and against the spread over the last two years.
Coughlin has shown he’s not afraid to give his starters more time in the second preseason game than most of his colleagues, no doubt one of the reasons his team has been so dominant.
Bettors can count on America’s team early on. The Cowboys are 14-6 both SU and ATS since 2002 in warm-up contests. Former coach Bill Parcells, the coach of the team the last four years, has an intimidating, in-your-face presence – surely a reason Dallas has had so much early success.
The Big Tuna won’t be strolling the sidelines with looks of disgust, but new coach Wade Phillips will be anxious to make a good first impression for owner Jerry Jones.
Dallas plays the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos before things get serious. They then face the Houston Texans in their third contest (the game starters see most game time) and finish off with the Minnesota Vikings.
Expect a Dallas team able to walk away with another 3-1 preseason record.
This team scored a league-worst 12 offensive touchdowns last season, so the rookies and veterans each have something to prove. There’s a bounty of first-unit jobs up for grabs and plenty of bodies competing for those slots.
First-time head coach Lane Kiffin will be eager to impress an owner who employs the philosophy, “Just win, baby!”
The 32-year-old Kiffin has to command respect from a locker room full of players older than him. All of these factors should lead to purpose in preseason.
Don’t forget: before playing like a team that belonged in NFL Europe, Oakland went 4-1 (both SU and ATS) in exhibition games.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football wagering needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.