Last week we reviewed the possibilities of what occurs with tired teams, this week we’ll engage in the exercise of NBA squads with no days off all the way to three or days between games for the 2009-10 campaign. As one might expect, teams with roughly 24 hours between games don’t fare well and are generally a losing proposition, though exceptions do exist. It’s a mixed bag for clubs with a day or ... read more
In the late 1990’s, a person I had known for a number years had told me about a method of betting college and professional basketball that he used as part of his way of picking games. His reasoning was sound; though I’d never taken the time to go on a fact finding mission to see if what he was saying was true.
Over the years I never forgot he told me and would use his methodology as one la ... read more
For a number of years now the Western Conference has been superior to the East. This is easily shown by the fact Eastern Conference has six teams with winning records (one is one game over .500) and the West has just four teams with losing records among its 15 members.
One aspect this year besides the dominance once again, the wagering aspect comes into play more than one might think. The ... read more
All of us go thru our lives trying to find people and things we can depend on. If we go out to eat, we look to go to places where the food is good or trust the judgment of our friends, for a tasty meal. When we need services for cars, air-conditioning or heat and possibly appliances that breakdown, we want to be able to trust someone to fix the problem at a fair price.
Both New York and Minnesota are road underdogs this upcoming Sunday, yet each in their own way has proven to be a valuable play for the sports bettors. The postseason tournament has revisited yesteryear this season, as the two top seeds from each conference advanced to the conference titles games for the first time since 2004. However, if history has shown us anything, the higher seeded favorite n ... read more
Breaking the century mark in professional basketball offers insights into many different areas of the game for teams, fans and sports bettors. For those in attendance at an NBA game, the home team breaking 100 may mean a free drink or free food depending on the club’s list of sponsors. For any team, scoring 100 points might lead to a near certain victory, however scoring that many points and givin ... read more
If you played Jacksonville or Kansas City this past Sunday, your nerve-endings were tingling, only to be slapped upside the head late in the game. The Jaguars came into their game against Miami well-positioned at 7-5 to take an AFC playoff berth despite being outscored on the season. Midway thru the second quarter it was apparent, the Dolphins had everything Jacksonville did not. A better running ... read more
The Southeastern Conference was the innovator of the Conference Championship game back in 1992 and when you think about, this has helped propel them to being arguably the best conference in college football year in, year out. The leaders of the SEC knew their customer was a football starved fan and would relish the opportunity for one more game to decide the league’s title. Most years this has pro ... read more
The fabric of college football is wrapped in its traditions and many of its colorful rivalries that make college football such a great sport. This upcoming week, many of the more historic matchups will take place yet again this holiday weekend starting Thanksgiving night.
Let’s stop all this talk about changing out Detroit and Dallas on Thanksgiving to allow other teams to play. The Lions have been bad for years, so what, we still watch at least a good portion of the game and would it kill you to talk to a family member if the game isn’t a classic. We have three games to choose from during the course of the day, let’s just enjoy what we have.
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If you were one of the sports bettors who had Carolina at -7 at home against Buffalo last Sunday, you were robbed. No it wasn’t by the oddsmaker and it wasn’t by Jake Delhomme (though he played a strong supporting role), it was the Carolina kicker John Kasay.
As advanced steps have been taken to analyze sports, one not given nearly enough credit is lost opportunities and how they relate to ... read more
In these times of trying to be environmentally friendly, it is good for the earth to do so. The three R’s are at the centerpiece of this movement, recycle, reuse and reduce. Buying in larger quantities helps reduce the amounts of garbage is placed in landfills. Other tips include product lifecycle, sustainability and value. In the spirit of looking to do what’s right for the earth, adding Green to ... read more
We’ve all heard veteran NFL players talk about the league as “just a business”. If you think of the National Football like say a McDonald’s, you have 32 franchisees within its framework. While Mickey D’s would never allow certain bone-headed people to be in charge of their operations, on Sunday, we saw the differences in a well-run franchise and one’s that should be going out of business or at le ... read more
It seems a little dull, at least at this time that Florida and Alabama are clearly the two best teams in the country and not much excitement stands in their way until they play in one BSC semifinal game again this year, referred to as the SEC Championship Game brought to by Dr. Pepper. (No money changed hands for product mention; it’s just how the announcers promote the game).
Dating back to Perry Mason and fast-forwarding to Denny Crane of Boston Legal, it’s always been an asset to have a good defense. That has also been the case in winning college football games, since we have always heard the mantra, “defense wins championships”. The question is does a top notch defense help the sports bettor win money?
Without a doubt, it is part of the winning portfolio and ... read more
With the first weekend of October arriving, the leaves are or will be turning colors very shortly, offering a wonderful assortment of shades on the color spectrum. This time of year can also add a collection of “Benjamin Franklin’s” for the sports bettor prepared to rake in profits with the correct knowledge.
With the start of the last quarter of the year, this signifies college football go ... read more
Let’s start with the facts, the ACC generously speaking, is lousy. Not in all sports, as North Carolina has done a great job holding up the league’s reputation in college basketball and the conference sent two teams to the College World Series in baseball this past summer. No, we’re just talking football.
For those that love to wager on college football, it comes in handy to know certain tendencies of the head coach. Though virtually every coach could care less about the point spread on any game they are involved in coaching, word will filter down thru various channels that high-profile alumni with large banking accounts wouldn’t mind the home team covering a spread against a particular opponent. T ... read more
On Saturday, it’s obvious the talent level at Wisconsin has dropped. Former coach and now AD Barry Alvarez locked up most every top recruits in the state of Wisconsin and several very good ones in Iowa and certain pockets of Illinois. Though Barry hand-picked Bret Bielema as his successor, the quality of players on the Madison c ... read more
These are unusual times in Columbus, Ohio, especially considering its football time. The Ohio State University football program has turned into Pepsi. Though the product sells, is well liked among most consumers, it still pales in comparison to Coca-Cola. (Florida and USC in this case) The Big Ten Conference was once the most feared in the land, but like the shifting population base of the country ... read more
In order for the very best teams to play in the biggest bowls their conferences have tie-ins to; the first thing they have to do is win their conference championship. The BCS has its teams they select first from its conference champions and Conference USA, the MAC, the Mountain West and Sun Belt winners all have bowl games lined up for them to play for winning the league title.
In order to win at sports betting, you have to be able to identity situations quickly. Most people assume every oddsmaker knows every aspect of a certain game, which talking with professional sports bettors just isn’t true. Most regular bettors have no idea the wealth of information available to them and this is where we can come in and help also.
It’s nearly impossible to make sound judg ... read more
The NFL Preseason gives sports bettors their first shot at getting back into to the game they are so passionate about. The SportsCenter highlights and countless team reports being blogged with up to the minute information has the football bettor foaming at the mouth to make first game wager. Never mind the fact that most of the teams don’t truly care whether they win or lose, it’s about getting re ... read more
With college football training camps opening in about a month, the anticipation of the 2009 season is growing rapidly. Now is a terrific time to dig through the preseason magazines in hopes of finding some nuggets you can put to use in futures wagers or when the season arrives. This article looks at ten college games to target this season, based on factors like revenge, scheduling quirks, and look ... read more
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim quietly moved ahead of more well-known teams like Boston and the New York Yankees, to be the best team in the American League with 63-40 record and would have the best overall record ahead of their city brethren, the Dodgers, if they had played two more games and won both. The Angels may not have made a lot of noise in climbing to be the best team in the AL, but t ... read more
We have all been there as sports bettors, an attractive wager has been made on the team ace and he’s shelled and gone by the fourth inning, causing wagering accounts to decline. You understand as baseball bettor, the good pitchers are going to get beat, but when they are battered like the heavy bag at the gym, that is more gut-wrenching. After taking such a loss, is it a good or bad idea to follow ... read more
With the All-Star game behind us and three well-deserved days away from wagering on Major League Baseball, it’s time to get back in the saddle and continue the delightful daily grind. If you have had the good fortune of making a solid profit like this reporter betting baseball, it is time to consider a few adjustments for the remainder of the regular season. What could change in three days with no ... read more
Back in March, one of my assignments was to go cover the strengths and weakness of each Major League Baseball team and make a prediction on how each club would likely measure up against the season totals set by the oddsmakers. With the baseball season roughly 54 percent completed, thought I would look back and see how I preformed four months ago and how I might end up when the final results are of ... read more
The interpretation of how baseball was to be viewed differently came about with Bill James book “Baseball Abstract”. He and his fellow scribes developed an illuminating way to no longer take a batting average at face value, rather look inside the numbers to understand what it really might means. The term “sabermetric” became part of the language of baseball in the late 1980’s and still is widely r ... read more
With the 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis next Tuesday, several teams will be doing their best to position themselves to close with a flourish before the break. A number of teams can set themselves up in good spots to start the second half of the season by playing well or be undermined with doubt if they don’t play as good as they had hoped. Here is a look at four specific teams with intriguing sch ... read more
With the advent of the 12th game added to college football schedule in 2006, it was reported by the NCAA, this was designed to create more interesting non-conference conflicts. Well, like any government bureaucracy, the plan was short-sighted, not thought all the way through and turns out to be nothing like it was intended to be. Most BCS universities used this opportunity to add a home game as re ... read more
Each baseball season, we learn by following who are the best pitchers in baseball. We’ve become conditioned to look for names like Roy Halladay, Josh Beckett, Johan Santana, Tim Lincecum, C.C. Sabathia and others. Most years, pitchers targeted for greatness also put it all together and this year we have seen Zack Greinke, Chad Billingsley and Dan Haren to name a few become dominate, with bright fu ... read more
It’s unfortunate, but how can I possibly not comment like the rest of the Free World about the antics of Number 4 (fill in jersey color). In the state of Wisconsin, Favre had become the most revered Green Bay Packer since Bart Starr and even after his hissy fit with General Manager Ted Thompson last year; most were willing to let bygone’s be bygone’s and wished him luck in New Jersey.
There has been more of movement the last several years for baseball bettors to play totals. It is easy to trace the origins as totals today have price tags of -135 or -140 on a particular number, compared to mostly -120 at the highest point before a number change not that many seasons ago. (Ex. - Under 9 (-120) moves down to 8.5) With betting lines like the stock market, what creates this kind of ... read more
Maybe it’s the SportsCenter syndrome, or too many highlights on Baseball Tonight, but it sure seems like their have been more blown saves this season then in the past. Talked to a number of people, from normal every day fans to serious baseball bettors and the answer was the same, they agreed, more blown saves in 2009 then in the past. This piqued my curiosity and had to find the correct answer. A ... read more
Its happened to all of us, we are invited over someone’s home as a guest and the place is set up as a palace. The entire house looks like out of magazine, where everything is perfect. If you have or did have children visiting this palatial estate, your body temperature just rose about three degrees, thinking about how you are going to keep your kids in tow, without messing up beautiful setting. Yo ... read more
p>Read a great article this week by Jayson Stark of ESPN.com, talking about 70-75 percent of all baseball players dislike interleague play. Among the reasons given are unfamiliarity of players, meaningless matchups (the Pittsburgh vs Washington series was a classic this week), dealing with the DH and unfair schedule for teams within same division. Excuse me while I wipe away the tears for these bl ... read more
Numbers are vital to every sports bettor and handicapper; they are the lifeblood of formulating strong fundamentals. There are various ways to use numbers and interpret information, those with the keen eye of dissecting figures and understanding true meanings, are usually those who take the larger portions of wagering pie. Here are numbers to consider current running sports.
Over the last couple of decades, intelligent baseball fans have moved away
from the rudimentary statistics to more thought-provoking and useful numbers.
The ideas of batting average and earned run average telling the whole story just
isn’t true anymore and we moved ahead to more sophisticated methods of measuring
performance.
From the batting perspective, one common ... read more
For many basketball bettors, this is a sad day. Dating back to the end of October, they have diligently grinded away studying all aspects of the NBA, be it numbers, scheduling, players stats, angles or flipping coins, all to find winners. With only two teams having completed their regular season, a monstrosity of 14 games is available today to close the regular season.
It was an eventful first four days of the men’s basketball tourney and it is readily apparent things are in the process of change. When a team like Arizona, who has been to the tournament as often as a sunny day in Tucson, is the Cinderella story, well you can see the landscape is changing. The charm of big time upsets and unnatural storylines is giving way to the “chalk” ruling tournaments.
The ability to picking brackets is as unsophisticated ever to the masses, but to serious folks like us who like to wager, this is far from just being a fun activity. We live for the action and more specifically, we hunt for winners and putting cash back in our AIG depleted coffers. While searching the internet, came across Bracketscience.com, by Peter Tiernan, who has been using stats to analyze M ... read more
P>With the field of 65 teams set, the real fun begins, who are the locks to win and advance and where will the upsets come from. In many cases, filling out a bracket is challenging enough, however trying to beat the oddsmakers over the first four days of the NCAA Tournament might be the reason Rogaine was invented, as fans see double digit leads dissipate faster than our dollars being handed out f ... read more
The NBA’s second half of the season is about to begin and though the playoffs can be interesting like last season, only a few select teams have a realistic chance to win the NBA title. The rest are pretenders and wanna-be’s and are or could be in the NBA playoffs, with little or no chance to be champions. Here is a look into the crystal ball from this point forward. True Eastern Con ... read more
With football over for yet another season, unless the Pro Bowl is part of your betting plans, it is time to turn full attention to college basketball wagering. With Wednesday, Thursday and especially Saturday cards often cumbersome because of the sheer volume of games, it can be wise to shave the number of contests down to more manageable numbers. How this can be accomplished is finding particular ... read more
Recently had a discussion with a fellow NBA sports bettor, touching on the variety of different ways of looking at games and situations to find the best way to show a profit. This is a hard sport to grind out wins anyways and if you are resistant to change, you are doomed for failure betting this sport.
Part of our talk was whether it was really a good idea to bet on the best teams in t ... read more
The NBA season is one of the most mentally and physically grueling there is in professional sports. No matter how good or a bad a team is, eventually the 82- game grind catches up with you. This can be especially troubling for NBA bettors, since it is widely considered the most difficult sport to bet sides on, since you are not only going against sharp numbers on a daily basis, but having to specu ... read more
Go ahead, I dare you to guess what the Denver Broncos season ending record will be, let alone how they will perform over the next four weeks against the spread. The 2008 Broncos seem to be a mix of Britney, Lindsey, and Paris all wrapped into one. A closer look at the team is more confounding than Mike Shanahan having a darkly tanned face in December living in Rocky Mountain country.
One of the great things about being a college football sports bettor, you can live in the present and look towards the future. This week the BCS talk is running rampant, borderline Michael Douglas in “Falling Down”, with too many angry types speculating about everything that is wrong with the BCS system. It is far from a perfect system, but the drama is incredible.
With just four weeks left in the college football regular season, it’s time to sit down and conclude who has the best chance to win the BCS trophy and more importantly for college football bettors, who is the best team to wager on. The question has come my way, why make a wager now on who could be national champions. Let me think, how many of you threw away futures tickets on say Georgia, Ohio Sta ... read more
