UConn Scandal: Yahoo! Sports breaks the big news of UConn’s staggering sloppiness in not having untraceable, non-university owned cell phones on which to commit their recruiting violations.  Everyone knows that college hoops recruiting is a “hold your nose” activity, and one can only imagine the Freedom of Information Act requests that have been flying around since Kelvin Sampson’s story broke.  Reading the story begs the question: why weren’t the UConn coaches covering their tracks?  A UConn-friendly agent (a former UConn student manager, actually) steering a troubled recruit to Storrs and alarming frequency of contact with the recruit are the key points here. It is unfathomable that the Huskies, with all their talent, would risk serious sanctions by so boldly breaking NCAA recruiting rules.  The story is meticulously documented, well-crafted, and damning. 

North Dakota State Volunteerism: Led by senior guard Ben Woodside, a 23-point per game scorer who is a potential NBA draft pick, North Dakota State gave Kansas a ballgame last week in the first round of the NCAA tournament.  This week Woodside was back in action, but not on the court.  Rather, he was helping save the homes of strangers threatened by significant spring flooding on the Red River. Woodside, his coach, and teammates joined just about every other able-bodied person in the Fargo area in spending long hours filling and laying sandbags in an effort to minimize flood damage in an impressive display of support for their community. 

There’s a lot of good and bad in the world.  Today’s stories show us that’s the case in college basketball as well.

Who wins on Saturday to qualify for the Sweet 16?  Let’s take a look at how some of these matchups came to be, which may provide you with some potential ammo for your personal pointspread battles.

1. LSU vs. North Carolina:  LSU’s 75-71 win over Butler was fueled by superior athleticism.  The Tigers frontcourt scored 56 of their 75 points while the backcourt held the Bulldogs to 8-23 from behind the arc.  Obviously that athletic advantage doesn’t apply against UNC.  While Ty Lawson is a “gametime decision” according to Roy Williams, North Carolina media outlets suggest he’ll be playing, as does the double-digit pointspread.

2. Duke vs. Texas:  Duke allowed Binghamton to shoot 53%, but won 86-62 by dominating the free throw stripe (21-1) and rebounding (35-18).   That sort of inside edge is unlikely to be in effect against a Texas team that outrebounded Minnesota 40-29.

3. Texas A&M vs. Connecticut: The Aggies were a remarkable 24-35 on their 2-point field goal attempts as they dominated BYU 79-66.  The Aggies hit 10 straight shots in getting out to a 26-8 lead and they never looked back.  That level of 2-point proficiency won’t be possible against the Thabeet-lead UConn interior D.  The Huskies cakewalked over an outclassed group of Chattanooga Moccasins.

4. Oklahoma vs. Michigan: The Sooners faced no resistance against Morgan State, with Blake Griffin shooting 10-11 from the field and getting body slammed along the way. Michigan benefitted from horrid Clemson shooting.  Effective Wolverines D contributed to the Tigers 21-65 failure from the field, while 3-point marksman Oglesby went 1-8 before an ejection for throwing an elbow.  Clemson’s comeback fell 3-points short.  OU figures to control the glass, as Clemson outrebounded Michigan 40-28.  As always, the Wolverines will be dependent on their 3-point shooting.

5. Purdue vs. Washington.  Purdue jetted out to a 18-8 lead over Northern Iowa but Boilermakers 3-15 3-point shooting didn’t permit them to extend the lead.  Now Boilermakers go from taking on one of the most deliberate teams in the field to one of the most uptempo squads in Washington.  Huskies benefitted by drawing a Mississippi State club that won their 4th game in 4 days on Sunday and then had to travel cross country for the early Thursday tipoff. Line move from pick to Washington -1.5 likely influenced by bettors knowing that the Rose Garden in Portland is a site that favors the Huskies.

All the best to you in your battle against the Vegas and online sportsbooks this weekend.

Let’s see what we can glean from yesterday’s results that are of interest as you attack local, Vegas, and online sportsbooks on Friday.   Should you let the short sample of yesterday’s results influence your decisions on Friday?  Your call.

1. If you consider Duke to have covered their game, and Gonzaga not to have covered theirs, dogs had a 9-7 edge. Totals favored the over by somewhere in the 11-5, 10-5-1, 10-6 range.  Your mileage may vary.

2. Favorites of 20 or more (Duke, North Carolina, Connecticut, Memphis) were 3-1 against the pointspread and 3-1 to the over.  Both results fly in the face of what usually happens in games with huge favorites in the first round.

3. If you had the Chattanooga/Connecticut game under the total, avert your eyes.   Jim Calhoun’s absence due to illness may have been the difference between the game staying under, or going over late, which is what happened. UConn scored on their last 10 possessions.  According to the play-by-play (admittedly always a little dicey) UConn shot the ball in 10 seconds or less on 7 of those 10 possessions.  If Calhoun is glowering on the sidelines don’t you think the Huskies, up 50 in the closing minutes, are running clock and conserving energy for Saturday instead running, gunning, and padding stats?  This isn’t a complaint, by the way, as I wasn’t involved in that total.  I did have the Morgan State/Oklahoma game under, and found Todd Bozeman’s strategy of fouling in the closing seconds down 26 rather unique.  Of course, I really shouldn’t complain, as I thought long and hard about playing Thursday night’s Blazers/Cavaliers game under before passing. That one went over by a bucket in overtime.

4. Best performance by a conference was the Big 12 going 3-0 straight up and against the spread, with all 3 pointspread covers by (Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M) by double digits. Other noteable performances saw the ACC go 3-1 to the pointspread (considering Duke a cover), while the Big 10 was 1-3.

5. The whole “spend the first weekend of the tournament hanging out with hundreds of sweaty guys we don’t know in Vegas” thing has always been lost on me.  At home I control the TV, the beer is on demand, and I seem to find ways to get bets down.  But for guys who consider online sportsbooks to have been “made illegal”, haven’t had the proper amount of male bonding in their lifetime, or simply are looking for an excuse to ditch the office and family, Vegas is still a popular destination.  But according to a couple of the sweaty bonders who were in touch on Thursday, the crowds are, as expected, a little thinner out there this year.

Good luck to you on Friday, and be careful.

I projected my Final Four on the ABC affiliate in Providence with ABC6’s Ken Bell. Two lessons learned from the appearance. First, legal and illegal gambling is so ingrained in Rhode Island that made up statistics about Ocean State sports betting ring ever-so-slightly true. Second, don’t let horrible pictures of yourself find their way online, because Google Images is forever.

Let’s talk tournaments with 5 items of interest, all in college basketball.

1. Teams playing in their home state have a winning record against the pointspread in the NCAA tournament, but Villanova coach Jay Wright made an interesting point this week when he reminded reporters that in Philadelphia a couple of years ago the crowd was rooting for Monmouth to upset the hometown Wildcats.  All the neutrals and out-of-towners were pulling for the upset.   Home court advantage is likely greater in the second round, when losers go home and more tickets free up for local fans who hadn’t donated enough money to their team’s athletic program to have a shot at them the first time around. 

2. The minor tournaments (NIT, CBI, College Insider) all got started last night, with all the home teams favored. For what it’s worth, those home favorites went 6-5-1 against the pointspread.  Power conference teams went 1-4-1 to the pointspread.  For our purposes, we’re calling the UAB vs. ND game a push, though +6.5 was available on UAB at a number of sportsbooks throughout the day while a couple of minutes before the 9PM EDT start -5.5 was available on Notre Dame.

3. The NCAA tourney tipped off (kinda) last night, with Morehead State routing Alabama State 58-43.   MSU opened up a one-point favorite before being bet as high as -3.  The past few years in the play-in game the surge of money has been on the wrong side, but bettors who moved that line last night were correct.

4. Virginia Commonwealth seems to be the bracket buster du jour, and VCU coach Anthony Grant will likely be making a lot more money somewhere else next season (maybe those Georgia players transferring should wait and see who their coach is before jumping ship).  But if you’re picking VCU, make sure it isn’t because of the frequently cited reason that UCLA is ”traveling three time zones east”.  UCLA’s conference tournament was in their home town, they haven’t played since last Saturday, and their game tips off at 9:50 EDT (6:50PM on Bruin body clocks).  If they were fatigued, or had played more than twice in the past 12 days, or if it was a noon game the time zone could be an issue.  If VCU wins it will because they play better than UCLA, not because of the time zone.

5. Rhode Islanders have little need for an online sportsbook, as research shows that 1 of 8 Providence residents live next door to a bookmaker.  As a result of such intense pointspread interest in the Ocean State, I’ll be on ABC 6 News with New England sportscasting legend Ken Bell sharing some tournament thoughts this afternoon at 4:45PM.  So in the unlikely event you’re reading this from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Eastern Connecticut, be sure to tune in. 

Sign up for our daily pointspread selections on the NCAA tournament (as well as the other college tourneys) and you’ll get the rest of the NBA regular season for free.  Call me at 1-770-649-1078 for rates and details, as well as answers to any questions you may have.

There’s no better way to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day than with the music of Sharon Shannon, the pinnacle of Irish trad. Celebrate with “Bag of Cats”, which starts nicely and then closes like Silky Sullivan.

It’s un-American to root for the chalk in the NCAA tournament, but it was the right thing to do last year, as all 4 #1 seeds got to the Final Four for the first time ever.   And that was less of a one-year anomoly than you think. Picking the higher ranked teams in your bracket is usually the right thing to do as well.

Just because the #1 seeds hadn’t filled out the entire Final Four before doesn’t mean that they haven’t performed remarkably well.  Indeed, the #1 seeds are #1’s for a reason, because they deserve the seeding.  #2’s have proven themselves worthy as well.

Over the past 18 years 49 of the 72 Final Four teams have been either a #1 seed or a #2 seed.  That’s a healthy 68% of the Final Four slots being filled by #1’s and #2’s.  33 have been #1’s and 16 have been #2 seeds. 

From a percentage standpoint that translates to 45.8% of #1 seeds making the Final Four and 22.2% of #2 seeds doing so.

And the numbers are similar when it comes to who hoists the hardware.  Each of the last 18 NCAA champions have been a top 4 seed.  12 #1’s, 3 #2’s, 2 #3’s, and a single #4 have earned titles.

Power conference teams have proven to dominate the tournament.  When Memphis made it last year the Tigers were only the 4th non-power conference team since the iconic UNLV outfits in 1990 and 1991 to earn a Final Four appearance.  Memphis joined George Mason (2006), Utah (1998), and UMass (1996) as the only teams not currently in the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, or ACC to make the Final Four since Tark’s heyday.  And while Memphis isn’t in a BCS Conference, the Tiger program has all the advantages of a major conference program as far as funding, fan support, coaching, and a sleazy network of AAU coaches and street agents top-notch recruiting.

Cinderellas make for great stories each March.  But they ordinarily fade away after a win or two. Power conference teams who have proven themselves enough to nab a top seeding are the ones who earn the title of Lords of the Big Dance. 

Here are a few notes designed to provide a little insight into the massive college tourney card on Thursday.

1. In Baylor’s 65-49 win over Nebraska BU forward Kevin Rogers outrebounded the entire Cornhusker team 20-17. After the low scoring win over Nebraska, the Baylor Bears have now played 8 consecutive unders.  This is the polar opposite of the style of ball the Bears were playing last season, when they concluded the season by playing 16 of 18 games over the total.  Baylor takes on top seed Kansas on Thursday.

2. Herb Sendek knows all about a “little brother” situation, as he was never able to escape the long shadows of North Carolina and Duke when he was the head man at NC State.  He had to overcome a similar situation at Arizona.  But since his arrival, Lute Olson had departed, and a win today by Sendek’s Sun Devils will give him a 5-0 series run and consecutive season sweeps.  With a new coach likely in Tucson next year, ASU would have edges in both performance and stability over their in-state rivals for the first time in decades.  ASU’s 4-game win streak has only been by margins of 5, 5, 6, and 2, so it has hardly been “Devil Dominance”.  But as the last time these teams will meet for 10 months, tonight’s game is critically important in this rivalry.  Vegas and online sportsbooks opened Arizona State as a 3.5-point favorite.

3. A lot of conference “rivals” don’t play each other all that often in the era of 12, 14, and 16 team conferences.  But when Temple meets St. Joseph’s today there’s plenty of familiarity.  Although the Atlantic 10 would be more accurately named the Atlantic 14, Temple and St. Joe’s play twice every year in the regular season.  This is also the fourth consecutive year that they’ve met in the conference tournament.  Extraordinarily, Amhad Nivins and Dionte Christmas are matching up for the 12th time in their career. St. Joe’s has a 5-6 mark over that time frame but Temple has been covering at a 7-4 rate.  The past two years has seen the rivalry tilt in the direction of Temple as the Owls are 4-1 straight up and 5-0 against the pointspread.

4. When Akron edged Toledo 93-92 in overtime on Tuesday in the MAC tournament I was eager to find reasons to play the Zips in the second round of their tournament.  I expected that the linemaker would overadjust for the overtime, when in fact Akron’s minutes were spread out beautifully. 10 Akron players played double digit minutes, with 8 of them between 16 and 32 minutes.  But the MAC has an odd format to their tourney with a day’s break between the opening round on Tuesday and today’s action.  So no overreaction would be in the offing.  The Zips opened a 1.5 point dog to the Miami-Ohio Redhawks at Vegas and offshore sportsbooks.

5. Wednesday was probably decent for the sports books. The public doesn’t completely knee-jerk to favorites and overs like they used to, but when the dogs go 11-10 and the unders go 13-8, online sportsbooks and those behind the counter in Las Vegas are usually happy.

Good luck on Thursday.

Some notes and observations from Wednesday conference tourney play.

1. Conference bloat is in effect today.  The Big East, Big 12, and Atlantic 10 have a combined 12 games being played.  In those three conferences, the only game between teams that met twice in the regular season is Texas Tech vs. Texas A&M.

2. They may have started 0-4, including losses to Howard, Nevada, and Montana State, but Oregon State now has 8 outright upset wins this season, including 4 as a double digit dog.  They only have 3 losses all year where they covered the spread. They closed the season with conference road losses by 10, 25, and 16.  They’re not a “sticky” team that hangs around.  They tend to either win or get waxed.

3. Marshall’s a better team than Rice and dominated them at home a week ago today.   Rice shot 26-49 (53%) from the field, including 6-10 from the arc.  But despite the hot shooting Marshall won 76-62, showing how thoroughly the Thundering Herd were dominated in every other phase of the game.  But it’s tough to lay big points with Marshall, as other than that game Marshall was 1-6-1 to the pointspread as a favorite, making those who laid points with them against Vegas and online sportsbooks frequently unhappy.

4. In other “who cares?” Conference USA action (answer: those who bet on the games) Southern Miss takes on Central Florida.  We spoke of USM’s underachievement a few days ago, and a key to their problems is their poor 3-point shooting.  Most teams that are stridently half-court oriented shoot a lot of 3’s to make up for the fast-break opportunities they aren’t getting.  But the Golden Eagles shoot less than 30% from outside the arc, so while they average 55 shot attempts per game, only 11 of them are from outside the arc.  And shooting a ton of 2’s with a slow pace is not a recipe for success.

5.  Montana State stunned #1 seed Weber State on their home court, and now take on the Portland State Vikings for the Big Sky title and automatic berth.  MSU lead scorer Will Bynum (not to be confused with that Will Bynum) leads a remarkably balanced attack, averaging only 10.8 points per game, with other Bobcats scoring10.6, 10.1, 9.4, 7.8, 5.4, and 5.3.  We won’t be betting on this game, and are torn as fans, having friends who were athletes at both Portland State and Montana State.  But only one of them ever offered a shirt supporting their school as a gift, so Go Bobcats!

Bet you didn’t expect 2 of our 5 items to mention Montana State today.  If you missed our article on conference tournament handicapping earlier in the week, here it is.  Good luck and be careful.

What are the Ohio University Bobcats, the last place team in the MAC East, doing laying 4 points tonight into MAC West co-champs Western Michigan in that conference’s tournament this evening?  Have Vegas and offshore sportsbooks made a mistake?

Not hardly.  The pointspread is correct, it is the MAC that is wack.  Every team in the East is substantially better than every team in the West.  The Eastern teams are all rated 173rd or better in the country by both Sagarin and Pomeroy, while the clubs in the West are all ranked 238th or worse by both of those analysts.

While both teams are 7-9 in conference play, Ohio played the much tougher schedule, playing two games against everyone in the stronger division and only once against the weaklings in the West.  The reverse is true for the WMU Broncos, who despite a 10-20 overall record tied for the divisional crown with Central Michigan (11-18), and Ball State (13-16).

The “dual division” era of conference play started in 1992, when the SEC split into Eastern and Western divisions.  During that short history has their ever been a conference with a greater imbalance than 2009 MAC basketball?