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01/28/2012 - Waco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brittney Griner scored 28 points and added seven rebounds to help No. 1 Baylor rout Kansas, 74-46.
Kimetria Hayden added 10 points, five boards and four assists and Odyssey Sims had eight points and six assists for the Lady Bears (21-0, 8-0 Big 12), who are one of the two remaining undefeated teams.
Carolyn Davis had 12 points and Angel Goodrich added 10 points and eight assists for the Jayhawks (16-4, 5-3), who have dropped two of three.
Baylor led 37-17 after the first half thanks to 45.7 percent shooting while holding Kansas to just 25.8 percent shooting.
<< Rockets roll past skidding Knicks
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chase Budinger had 19 points and Goran Dragic
added 16, as the Rockets cruised past the reeling Knicks, 97-84, on Saturday.
Neither team was with its leading scorer. Kevin Martin was out with a foot
injur
<< Virginia holds on to down North Carolina State
Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With Sammy Zeglinski and Jontel Evans draped
all over him, Lorenzo Brown's three-pointer at the buzzer from the right wing
fell short and No. 19 Virginia held on and escaped Raleigh with a 61-60 win
over No
<< Team Alfredsson wins elimination shootout
Ottawa, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Team Alfredsson defeated Team Chara in the
elimination shootout at the NHL SuperSkills competition.
Consisting of breakaway attempts, both teams sent 12 skaters on net and
Alfredsson's team scored
<< Iguodala's triple-double fuels rout of Pistons
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Before starting a brutal seven-game
stretch Monday, the Philadelphia 76ers had to take care of business against
the Detroit Pistons on Saturday night.
On his 28th birthday, Andre Iguodala record
No. 15 Creighton tops Bradley for 10th straight win >>
Omaha, NE (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Doug McDermott finished with a game-high 24
points and pulled down six rebounds as No. 15 Creighton topped Bradley, 73-59,
on Saturday.
Gregory Echenique recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebo
Undermanned Bucks down Lakers >>
Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Drew Gooden had 23 points and the Milwaukee
Bucks never trailed in the last 36-plus minutes of a 100-89 win over the Los
Angeles Lakers on Saturday.
The Lakers lost for the fourth time in five games and
UNLV downs Air Force in OT >>
Colorado Springs, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Moser had 27 points and 12
rebounds as No. 12 UNLV won its second consecutive overtime game on the road
with a 65-63 triumph over Air Force.
Oscar Bellfield added 15 points and seven a
Hayward, Miles help Jazz edge Kings >>
Salt Lake City, UT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Gordon Hayward scored 21 points, C.J.
Miles had 20 and the Utah Jazz survived a tailor-made three-point attempt by
Jimmer Fredette in the final seconds to beat the Sacramento Kings, 96-93, on
Saturda
Teams that should be in: Michigan State, Indiana
Work left to do: Illinois, Purdue, Michigan, Iowa
Behind the big two, the pecking order might be in a bit of flux. Has Michigan State passed Indiana after handling the Hoosiers in East Lansing? Where is Illinois in that mix? What looked like a four-big league last week could be morphing into five -- and even six is not unthinkable at this point if everything breaks right.
Should be in:
Michigan State [21-8 (8-6), RPI: 20, SOS: 15] The Spartans made it four-for-four on the homestand, a gigantic accomplishment that leaves them in extremely good shape. MSU is only 1-6 on the road and is at Michigan and at Wisconsin to close things out, meaning the date with the Wolverines on Tuesday looms very, very large. Beating Texas early will hold up well, as will the rout of Bradley and the win over BYU, but will 8-8 be enough? It very well could be, as the computer numbers are good, but why chance it?
Indiana [18-9 (8-6), RPI: 24, SOS: 32] Hmm ... good thing the last two are at Northwestern and home to Penn State, because IU might want to get both to feel completely safe after dropping its third in the last four, fading after halftime at Michigan State. Who knew the best nonconference win would be over Southern Illinois, which is a gift that keeps on giving for the Hoosiers. The win over Wisconsin also looks good on the mantel.
Work left to do:
Illinois [21-9 (9-6), RPI: 31, SOS: 25] A good performance at Penn State leaves the Illini in pretty good shape. Can they go to Iowa and take care of business to really look on their way? That's a huge game, as there is a possible cluster of teams that will end at 9-7. Illinois beat Bradley, but has lost to Xavier. A 9-7 mark and a semifinals trip in Chicago could be enough with the computer profile hanging in there, but it would be better not to mess around, clinching at least a tie for third.
Purdue [18-10 (7-7), RPI: 47, SOS: 28] Couldn't get it done at Iowa, but did win at Northwestern to put 9-7 squarely in sight. Where does that leave the Boilermakers, though? Even if they beat Minnesota and Northwestern at home, that won't help the computer numbers. Nonconference wins over Virginia, DePaul and Oklahoma are solid, but not spectacular. The Boilers very well might need an upset in the B10 quarters to have a legit claim.
Michigan [19-10 (7-7), RPI: 55, SOS: 53] Well, Michigan did what it needed to do, winning at Minnesota to take control of its fate. The Wolverines have Michigan State and an already-wrapped-up-the-league Ohio State at home to close, so the chances are there. Win both and we can talk. There is no marquee win yet in the profile, and the Wolverines were splattered in several games against name opponents. A mediocre computer profile fueled by a lack of road wins isn't helping, either.
Iowa [16-12 (8-6), RPI: 80, SOS: 64] For the sake of being complete, we'll add Iowa, this season's Stanford. It's plausible that the Hawkeyes could get to 10-6 (at Penn State, vs. Illinois left), but where does that leave them after a gruesome nonconference performance where the best win was over ... Toledo? Iowa State? Cornell?? If they get to 10-6, we can start to look at what they need to do in the B10 tourney, although my gut sense is that they would need to make the final and have knocked off Ohio State or Wisconsin on the way to have any real claim.
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Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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