Point Blank – January 29
The Weekender – A Saturday College Hoops caution…Not much tempo in Tinseltown tonight…
I should have written this column a couple of weeks ago, before the first major Saturday College Basketball board, but because of the New Year’s layout and all of the bowl games in play it felt like an overload of information. But this is still one that I should write every January, and perhaps it does fit just about as well this week, the first time there has not been significant football on the board since back in August (the Senior Bowl does qualify for a look, the Pro Bowl absolutely not).
The reminder came last weekend, and it is something many of you may have seen, the bizarre ending to the Ball State/Eastern Michigan game. Here is how the closing sequence played out -
If you felt it egregious for the officials to not blow the whistle a single time throughout scrum you are not alone – the Mid American Conference quickly suspended two of them. And in reviewing that game it led back to one of the single most important lessons I have ever learned when it comes to betting college basketball, and a debt that I owe to someone that I may never be able to track down and pay.
This key moment came about 20 years ago, when I was helping Mark Cuban to eventually buy the Dallas Mavericks by paying to listen to college basketball audio broadcasts, especially on Saturdays. It seems low-tech now, but at the time the ability to listen in to team broadcasts was a great way to gain insights. There was a game between James Madison and UNC-Wilmington on a Saturday afternoon, and I was listening to the JMU broadcast team, when their lead announcer said something after what he considered a bad call against the Dukes that caused a lot of bells to ring – “It’s another typical Saturday in the Colonial (Athletic Association), all of the good officials are somewhere else.”
That had honestly never occurred to me before, even though I had been heavily betting college basketball for over a decade at the time. It led me to immediately roll up my sleeves and get to work, and I believe the mini-tirade from that announcer has saved me a great deal of time and money over the years. While my recent focus has gone even more to the power conferences, now being able to watch just about every game through many of them, even 20 years ago I began stripping the lesser leagues from my Saturday workloads. You may want to consider it as well.
Here is the gist – even some of these minor conferences get good officials during the week, because the schedules are light. On Monday there were seven lined games; Tuesday brought 24; Wednesday 29; last night 39. On Saturday that count balloons to 101. How do the various conferences find enough officials t handle all of those games? They have to scramble around. After studying the results for a couple of seasons it became apparent that the Saturday games on the lower rungs of the college basketball ladder brought a higher degree of randomness, and that could be attributed to the weakness of the officiating. Not only would those referees lack experience overall, they would also not know the particular players and coaches they were calling, which makes it tougher for them to anticipate calls as part of the game flows.
If you are the James Madison announcer that made that statement way back when, drop me a note and I will send you a royalty check. It was a lesson well-learned for me, and is something that every serious college basketball bettor should consider – even if you do specialize in the smaller conferences, just be a little extra careful when investing in the Saturday games.
At the Senior Bowl…
As noted in the past, the annual College Football All Star games can provide some decent value if you take the time to look, largely because the oddsmakers do not put much time into their send-outs. Unfortunately an intention to break down the Senior Bowl this morning would still be premature because I do not see a single offering on the board yet. So I will wait for now, but will paste something in here, and in the follow-up thread, should something of value appear.
As has been the case in recent years, it is another lackluster QB crop, and this time they have exacerbated matters by having four on each side, with Jeff Driskell (Louisiana Tech), Kevin Hogan (Stanford), Cody Kessler (USC) and Carson Wentz (North Dakota State) for the North, and Brandon Allen (Arkansas), Jacoby Brissett (N. C. State), Jake Coker (Alabama) and Dak Prescott (Mississippi State) for the South.
Having eight QBs in Mobile is great for the scouts, who can watch them all week across various drills, but lousy for the game. None of the QBs get enough practice time working with the receivers to develop much of a rhythm (especially with no one throwing to teammates, which is one of the subtle factors you want to be looking for), and in particular a breezy 45-degree day on Wednesday did not help. Naturally that also means that for anyone to get enough playing time on Saturday to get the juices flowing will be problematic.
The most intriguing QB to watch will be Wentz, a 6-6/230 former WR that has a lot of upside, and may be on the verge of moving past Jerod Goff to be the first QB to come off the board in the draft. Experience is the question mark from him, not just because of the lower degree of difficulty he faced in college, but also because he played less than two full seasons as a starting QB, missing time with an injured wrist this past fall. But he did lead his team to back-to-back FCS National Championships, and there appears to be some leadership skills to go with the physical tools.
Item: Here come the props, and a potential bonus…
Hundreds of Super Bowl 50 props hit the board at the Westgate last night, Jay Kornegay and his crew again putting their imagination and acumen to work. While some potential favorable options will be discussed here next week, there is something of interest to you now – a Super Bowl Prop Contest serving as a satellite to win an entry into the 2016 NFL Super Contest.
In the Sights, NBA…
The Laker “Kobe In” pattern continued last night, a loose pacing that saw 180 FG attempts in an attempt to provide some kind of entertainment for the TNT cameras (Bryant himself managed to launch seven triples in 25:05). There is no official word yet as to whether he sees action tonight, but while I don't expect him to this time I am ready to play regardless, as the other side of the equation sets the tone, and that means #868 LA Clippers/Lakers Under (10:35 Eastern).
The Clippers have been without Blake Griffin for a while, but it is when they took the court at Indianapolis on Tuesday and Atlanta on Wednesday that they were making real adjustments knowing that it will be a long time before he takes the court again. Those games turned into a couple of dead grinders, wins of 91-89 and 85-83 that finished a collective 65 points below the market projections, and I do not see Doc Rivers in any hurry to be pushing tempo tonight, much like the 94-84 win over the Lakers on Christmas night.
The Clippers have only had one day to settle back in at home after playing five straight on the road, and there is also a quick turnaround before a showdown vs. the Bulls in Sunday’s early start. That makes this one merely a setting to get the “W” and keep the legs of Chris Paul and the other key cogs as fresh as possible, and the Lakers can’t do much more than play along. There is a small trickle of 205.5 out there this morning, but you should have little difficult finding 205.
In the Sights, NCAA…
With the Big 12/SEC Challenge providing an unusual interlude in the middle of the conference seasons, I see a degree of vulnerability for a couple of teams that fall into bad settings – road sides from the much tougher conference (the Big 12) that are heading nowhere this season, and could easily come out flat as they take a breather save energy for their league challenges ahead. Those vulnerable sides are Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, which puts #578 Arkansas (4:00 Eastern) and #646 Auburn (8:00 Eastern) into play.
Neither the Red Raiders nor Cowboys are heading to the Big Dance, and perhaps not even in the minor post-season tourneys (State in particular is a long-shot), and there is nothing about today’s particular opponents that create much spark. Instead it is the adjustment of playing a non-conference true road game that can throw them out of sync – something that neither of these teams has done all season.
Arkansas brings the defensive pressure to take full advantage of a flat opponent, especially with the confidence boost of having beaten Texas A&M on this floor earlier in the week. Meanwhile for as much as I loathe the Auburn tactical basketball this season Bruce Pearl has his team playing with a tremendous amount of energy, which has paved the way for wins over Kentucky and Alabama in the last two games at Auburn Arena. Both were sell-outs, which shows how much the basketball culture has changed. They are expecting another full house tonight, and the opportunity to showcase that in front of the ESPN2 cameras is something that Pearl is savvy enough to take full advantage of.
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