Point Blank – January 9
The first “full board” NCAA Saturday, the pitfalls it brings, and a debt long owed…An NBA “DBO” alert…When player impact goes beyond what numbers can measure…
Many of you will be a little extra excited when the Saturday NCAA boards gets posted – the first “full” slate of conference games on that day, with 99 different matchups that will hit the betting boards. I will share much of that excitement, though it has become tempered over time, positively so in a way that has enhanced the bankroll. And it is the annual reminder of a debt of gratitude owed that I will likely never be able to pay.
So here is the base – with that many games being played, the oddsmakers are obviously challenged to not only make good base numbers, but also be on top of the information flow. That is why you will read or listen to many in the handicapping community that will talk about focusing on the smaller conferences, teams where the info does not get out as quickly. And that sounds logical as hell, which would seemingly make Saturday’s a gold mine for those leagues. But not quite.
One of the problems of the lesser conferences is that the quality of play is simply not very good, with a corresponding heightened degree of inconsistency in the results. When laying vigorish, one of the goals is to reduce involvement with such inconsistencies as much as possible, whether it is from better sorting of past results, to simply not wanting to have your money on outcomes where the degree of randomness gets too high. Lesser coaches and lesser players obviously bring that. But on Saturday’s, there is even more.
Now for the real key, and one of the single most important lessons I even learned in basketball handicapping, coming from an unexpected direction. Back in the mid 1990’s, before the saturation of television coverage, I would often listen to NCAA games on-line, in order to get as much information as possible. On one particular Saturday I had dialed up the James Madison game at UNC-Wilmington, back at a time when Jerry Wainwight, HC of the latter, was awfully good to the pockets. He developed a reputation for tough man-to-man defenses that opponents in the Colonial Athletic Association struggled to solve, but because defense lacked sex appeal, the value did not go away.
So Wainwright’s team took control of another game, and grinded away. But it was in those early stages of the contest when the lead announcer for James Madison said something out of frustration that has echoed loudly for nearly two decades –
“It is another typical Saturday in the Colonial, all of the good officials are somewhere else…”
I should have had that turned into a plaque. It made me take pause to think at the time; it led me do a pile of extra research on those Saturday results; and it has likely saved me a significant amount of money in vigorish not frittered away through the years on events that were simply too random. It brought into play something beyond not just the lesser coaches and players at the smaller schools, but the fact that on Saturday’s when the board is so spread out, the quality of officiating is also significantly lower. During the week conferences like the Colonial could have some quality referees, but on Saturday’s those guys were working the better leagues, leaving a scramble to come up with crews that brought far less experience to the table. Instead of officials that can anticipate game flows because they know the coaches and the players, which makes the games from the top tier conferences flow so well, you instead have a lot of guys with little recognition of the participants, many of them having worked high school games the night before.
What happens is two-fold: First is that naturally the games become more random in terms of the bets that you make; Second is that those flukier results still produce standardized-looking box scores, which can also muddle future handicapping on the teams. So over the years a significant caution has been exercised for the lower rungs of the Saturday food chains, and I believe it has been to great advantage.
I owe more than a debt of gratitude to that JMU announcer, for indirectly bringing one of the best lessons of a betting lifetime into focus. Even if you do believe that you can find edges on those smaller conferences on Saturday’s, at least make the money management decision to keep those wagers at a lower level of your bankroll. Now on to some things that might be of use on the Weekend hardwoods…
In the Sights, NBA…
There is a “DBO” alert at #810 Oklahoma City on Friday night, so let’s give a shout-out to our good friend Marc Lawrence, who coined the phrase in the early stages of his long career at attacking the pointspread. In this instance it would be called a “DBO 58.5”, which is about as extreme as it gets in professional sports. The concept does not work quite as well as it once did, because markets do indeed adapt, but since the phrase will come up often in the future, let’s break it down.
DBO refers to Double Blow-Out, a setting that brings an underdog that just won outright, vs. a favorite that just lost outright, with the margin from the pointspread being in double figures in each game. In this instance, Utah won 97-77 at Chicago as +10.5 on Wednesday, while Oklahoma City was whipped 104-83 as -7.5 at Sacramento. The opportunity to play for the pendulums to swing back off of extreme results can create significant opportunity, especially in that you find the favorite with a two-fold edge: naturally wanting to bounce back off of the embarrassment, but second is the fact that they are also fore-warned. You do not take an underdog lightly after they won outright against a favored opponent.
There used to be a third element as well – the favorite would come a little undervalued, with the markets attaching weight to the most recent outing for each team. That part of the equation does not show in these modern times, which means that the game has to work off of its basketball merits, and not any market inefficiency. As such these games can still grind if the other pieces to the setting fit, which makes this one an interesting focus. This should be an “everything there is” effort from the Thunder, who are off of back-to-back ugly defeats, and have no holding back at all, since they do not play again until next Thursday. But for the Jazz it is the second game of a difficult road cycle, with another up at Houston on Saturday, and if they fall behind early it would not be unreasonable for Quin Snyder to give up the chase, and keep his better players fresh for the Rockets.
In the Sights, NCAA…
Illinois has been a topic on conversation on two occasions this week, a Monday column highlighting significant breakdowns the Illini had been having in the second half of games due to chemistry issues, and then a Wednesday projection that they would struggle to adapt to the loss of key cog Rayvonte Rice. And in truth their first game with Rice produced some ugly basketball. It just did not get recorded on the scoreboard that way, which sets up an intriguing setting on Sunday for #838 Nebraska.
In breaking down the Illinois issues much focus went on transfer guards Aaron Cosby and Ahmad Starks, a pair of “shoot-first” types that are not great team players, and also did not bring winning legacies with them from their other programs (Seton Hall and Oregon State). The thought prior to the Maryland tipoff was that if those two had to be bigger parts of the rotation, things could go from bad to worse. So what happened? That duo combined for an atrocious 2-15 from the field over 50 floor minutes, 11 of the attempts beyond the arc, with only two assists. The offensive team chemistry was so bad that there were only seven assists in the game, out of 55 FG attempts. But they were able to overcome that on the scoreboard via a break-out game from Malcolm Hill, who scored 28 points (his average coming in was 13.1, and he had never topped 20 previously in his career), and the utilization of a 2-3 zone that Maryland was not prepared for.
Now Illinois faces those same offensive chemistry issues (it was 11-37 on shots not taken by Hill) in a slow pace of a grinder game against what will be an under-rated Nebraska side. The Cornhuskers ran into some difficulties in a recent 1-6 ATS slide, including 0-2 SU and ATS in Big 10 play, because they were extremely short-handed in the rotation. But while the numbers put up by Leslee Smith, in his first appearance of the season, and Moses Abraham, who had not played since suffering a broken hand vs. Creighton, will not jump off the page, their presence made a huge difference, literally, in Thursday’s 65-49 rout of Rutgers (Smith is 6-8/254, Abraham 6-9/247). Their stats may not tell the impact, but the post-game from the Cornhusker players and coaches sure does.
First, from Terran Petteway, who had 20 points in a comfortable 31 minutes (he had played 38 and 37 in the first two league games) – “Pick-and-roll was way better, as you could tell. We got to the lane at will with the pick-and-roll because they’re so wide-bodied. You look at them, they set great screens.” And from HC Tim Miles - “Just the fact we didn’t have to play these guys into oblivion. We could get Shavon (Shields) out a couple of times, we could Terran (Petteway) out a couple of times - without foul trouble. Just take them out to rest them for a full minute-and-a-half. I just think that’s so important to what we’re doing.”
Now a couple of practice days to get Smith and Abraham into more of the flow, as well as the confidence off of Thursday’s win, should have the Cornhuskers well-set to exploit the Illinois issues.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five
Tuesday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL Wild Card Weekend
Wednesday – A Zodiac Effect (plotting Kevin Durant, on a night when a star might shine)…Kentucky “was” mortal for a night, does that become “is”…Why it is not time to be popping any corks in Champaign
Thursday – About that Toronto Road Trip (The Raptors didn’t rupture)…A brick, by any other name…Golden State adds another Warrior (but is it all good?)…When a pattern does not fit, it’s better to sit