It was a good day Monday going 3-0 in NBA, 1-0 in CBB, and 1-0 in our free pick at the website. While NBA totals have been unbelievably strong the past three seasons, I haven't ever done much with college hoops totals. I am trying to change that this year. I haven't released as many college hoops picks as in years past. This was due to extra time spent on college football, especially the bowls, and the NBA. While I have had 5 winning CBB seasons in the last 6 years, there has never been a killer season. I have had killer seasons in college football and the NBA and a 60% NFL season. CBB is very, very time consuming to handicap profitably. Some professional handicapper friends of mine have stopped capping college hoops due to the time requirements. Well, back to work.
I watched in person Hawaii play against UNLV a couple of Saturdays ago. Hawaii's QB, Joe Alexander, is a big guy who throws a ton of short passes over the middle. The Warriors have a couple of very good receivers, Rodney Bradley and Kealoha Pilares, who are good after the catch. Hawaii gets their one returning defensive starter back from injury this week, stud DE John Fonoti, who could put some good pressure on Bulldog QB Ross Jenkins.
La Tech has been a disappointment so far this year especially considering they returned 16 starters, nine on offense. They lost, 37-13, at Auburn being outgained by 311 yards and then traveled to Navy where they lost, 32-14, being outgained by 226 yards with a time of possession shortcoming of 19 minutes to Navy's 41. They are only rushing for 3.1 yards a carry. They do have a playmaker in Phillip Livas. It appears a lack of leadership, just ten seniors on the squad, and a loss of some take charge players to graduation has hurt the Bulldogs.
Over the past ten years, WAC home favorites of this price range in conference action have been a very good play. This is Hawaii's third straight road game. For their first two, at Washington St. and at UNLV, the Warriors stayed on the mainland. They did go home after the UNLV loss and Ruston, LA is a long flight. Hawaii also has had difficulties in recent years at La Tech.
I wanted to play La Tech, but last year they were weak on pass defense and two of the three games they have played were against predominant ground attacks, Navy and Nicholls State. Auburn's Chris Todd threw for 255 yards with an excellent QB rating of 173.2 against LT.
If Hawaii gets up by a couple of scores, I don't believe LT has the firepower to get back in the ball game. But, considering the past history, travel conditions, and this being a Wednesday night game, I don't want to take Hawaii.
On Friday my free play at the website was on the KC Chiefs +3 over Minnesota. Brett Favre was making his debut in a purple uniform and the Vikings had kicked butt the previous week. KC, on the other hand, suffered three turnovers (a net -3 in TO Margin) last week at home losing to the Houston Texans, 16-10. I had released the OVER in that game. The weather report was only a 20% chance of showers. Needless to say, most of the game was played in a torrential downpour of rain. Hard to score points in that kind of weather. Also, two times KC had the ball first and goal and only came away with 3 points.
That kind of pitiful red zone play happened again Friday night. Down 17-13 and with less than 2 minutes to go in the game, KC had a first and goal from the Viking one-yard line. I thought, not only was KC going to cover, but they were going to win outright! Two no-gain runs up the middle and an incomplete pass from recently acquired QB Matt Gutierrez left the Chiefs with a 4th and goal from the 1. In what I felt was a moronic call by KC, acquired in the past week WR Ashley Lelie (that name always sounded like a porn star to me) ran a fade which fell incomplete. The Chiefs lose.
Why would a fade route pass be called on a play that will cause you to win or lose the game when the two players involved, Gutierrez and Lelie, have worked together very little, if hardly at all. Fade routes in the end zone require very good timing between QB & WR. Gutierrez is the current #4 QB in camp and Lelie just checked in a few days ago.
This looks like the ghost of Herm Edwards is running the offensive show in KC. Well, no, we probably would have had four straight dives up the middle. Even Herm's play calling would have been better than the ill-fated fade route between two players who probably didn't even know each other's name.
BTW, Brett Favre looked like he hadn't played football in a couple of years. But the opposing starting QB, KC's Matt Cassel, doesn't have much of a deep-ball arm. At New England last year, Cassel was unable to air it deep to Randy Moss. The Chief's don't have anyone even close to Moss's ability, but Cassel hasn't been asked in two exhibition games to toss it deep even once. It looks like the dink and dunk days of Steve Bono (a name from the past) are back in KC.
It probably doesn't matter this year if Cassel can throw deep as I doubt he would ever have the time to do so behind the Chiefs' terrible offensive line. It looked like the Vikings had resurrected the Purple People Eaters of the 1970's, Minny's front four led by Carl Eller and Alan Page, both members of the Hall of Fame.
Two games in NFL preseason action Thursday night.Cincy is a 6.5 to 7-point dog at New England while Philadelphia is a 3-point road favorite at Indianapolis.The Bengals lost last week at New Orleans, 17-7.More concerning was QB Carson Palmer’s ankle sprain which will keep him out of Thursday’s game.Second-stringer J.T. O’Sullivan should start with Carson’s younger brother, Jordan Palmer, getting at least two quarters of action.
Philly lost at home to New England last week, 27-25.They outgained the Pats, 420 to 257, and had a +1 turnover advantage.However, they couldn’t get it into the end zone settling for 4 field goals on 6 attempts by Fred Akers.While normally I like to bet on a preseason team, in this case the Pats, that was outgained by 150+ yards in their previous game as it is a 62% winning wager over the past ten years, I don’t like laying that many points in preseason action.
Indy lost last week as a home dog, 13-3, to Minnesota in coach Jim Caldwell’s debut as the Colts HC.Peyton Manning played one series and was sacked three times.Manning will see more time this week but rookies Curtis Painter from Purdue and Chris Crane out of Boston College will get a fair amount of playing time.The #2 QB, Jim Sorgi, is still out with an injury.
Both Philly and Indy have multiple injuries, most notably the Eagles with four starting offensive linemen not playing.
A very good measuring stick for capping preseason is to look at how a coach historically has played exhibition games.The Eagles’ Andy Reid is only 14-27 SU, 19-22 ATS.Surprisingly, this is the very first time he has led the Eagles as a road favorite in the preseason.The Colts have a very bad streak going in preseason, 3-16 SU, 5-13-1 ATS, over their last 19.However, that record was compiled under Tony Dungy, not the current Indy coach.
Geez, watching the Atlanta coach in post game saying "we came out flat" in explaining his team's loss to Cleveland. My gosh, this is the playoffs. You are down 0-2 and you ARE AT HOME!!!! And you state you "came out flat"????? I would either fire that coach or at least take him into the office and talk to him very seriously. If he has no answer for why his team came out flat, then his ass is toast.
I love the playoffs. I also love the NCAA Tournament. I can't say which I like more. In March, it is obviously college. In April, it turns to the NBA. I will be betting Cleveland over Orlando in the Eastern Finals, assuming it is not worse than -300.
I apologize for not blogging more. I actually love to get my thoughts "out there". Off the talk, but is anybody else as sick of the Geico Gecko as much as I am? This is reaching Taco Bell Chiwawa (sp?) portions. I am a stickler on spelling, but the last 3 days have not been good financially for me or my clients and I am not in a good mood.
One has to continously evaluate college teams. It is a time consuming task, especially considering the number of teams that one can wager on. Here are a few team assessments this first week in January:
Underachievers
Louisville started out ranked #3 in the nation.The Cardinals lost on neutral courts to Sun Belt Conference Western Kentucky and to Minnesota.UNLV went on the road last week with their top player injured and beat Louisville.The Cards are playing very good defense but their offensive efficiency is sub-par.This is more glaring when you realize they have played a schedule full of weak defensive teams, with the exclusion of UNLV and Kentucky.Shooting 66.1% from the free-throw stripe leaves a lot of points on the court.Big man Fr. Samardo Samuels has to play more above the rim and draw more fouls.Terrence Williams has slightly improved his shooting from a miserable previous season, but he is only shooting 41.1% on 2-pointers and 29.8% on 3’s.Williams takes the most shots on the team but has a very poor offensive efficiency rating of 99.8.The starter with the best OE rating, Jerry Smith, 121.7, takes the fewest shots of any of the top seven in rotation.Last year Louisville started slowly at 5-3 but came on strong to finish at 27-9. The lack of offense has helped Louisville to a 3-7 O/U mark.
Arizona can play like a top ten team or one that is a conference bottom feeder.They are 7-1 at home with the lone loss being by one-point to a quality UAB team.But, the Wildcats are 0-4 on the road with pathetic offensive showings in their last three away tilts.Turnovers have been a tremendous problem on the road, also.A lack of depth does not help but three high-quality starters in Nic Wise, Chase Budinger, and Jordan Hill all have high-NBA potential with Hill being a lottery pick.Zona is in the bottom ten in the nation in the ratio of three-point field goals attempted to two-pointers.When there isn’t much of a threat from outside, the defense can sag inside.What is odd is the Wildcats rank 14th in 3-point shooting at 40.0%.You would think more 3’s would be going up with such a success rate.This week’s home games against the Oregon schools will help unravel the Arizona mystery.Arizona is just 3-6 ATS as a favorite.
Are They for Real? LSU has a gaudy 13-1 record which is deceptive as they have only played five lined games and have played the softest schedule in the nation out of 344 D-1 schools.Besides a couple of Sun Belt teams and a Big West squad, the Tigers have played two BCS schools.They lost in their only venture away from home, a semi-away game in Houston to Texas A&M.They beat a WashingtonState team by 12 points with 13 steals as they came from seven points down going on a 24-5 run to finish the game.A good test comes January 6th at Utah just five days before LSU opens conference play against division-rivalAlabama.Solid play from Sr. G Garrett Temple and Fr. G Bo Spencer have led the Tigers.
Alabama is not much higher on strength of schedule holding down a #339 rank.PG Ronald Steele is back after missing last year due to knee injuries and is regaining his confidence and getting closer to his previous form that made him one of the top pg’s in America.McDonald’s All-American 6-9 JaMychal Green is learning and improving weekly.While the Tide went to the Maui Invitational and their game against D-2 host Chaminade technically counts as an away game, Bama hasn’t played a true road game yet.Warning signs include one of the ten worst assist to field goals made ratio (means a lot of dribbling and little passing), the 209th ranked effective fg%, a 67.6% FT%, and a poor rate in allowing opponents offensive rebounds.And remember, these numbers are put up at home, or a neutral court, against a very weak schedule.Bama appears to be a team to bet against.
Enjoy the season, college hoops is hard to beat!
Jim
I live in Las Vegas and have been a season ticket holder of UNLV football since I moved here in 2000 from Kansas City.Nah, I’m not sadomasochistic, I love football and I no longer have KC Chiefs or University of Kansas games to go to.Plus, I believe in sponsoring your local teams.
UNLV beat then #13 ArizonaState in Tempe early in the year.(side note:early polls can be really, really wrong!)Then Big 12 Iowa State came to town and the Rebels jump out to a 28-0 lead.UNLV almost choked but held on for the victory.It might not sound like much to SEC or Big Ten fans, but for UNLV to beat two BCS schools on back to back weekends after three straight years of two-wins per season, it was like hitting an eight spot in Keno.
In the past three games, UNLV has blown leads in the last three minutes on their way to a loss.This past week’s blown game was at BYU, long time Mountain West stalwart.The game illustrates the importance of special teams.
First, the UNLV kicking team lets BYU return the opening kickoff 75 yards.A few plays later, the Cougars take advantage of the short field and go in for the touchdown.
The next special teams snafu happened when UNLV had to start a drive from it’s own one-yard line after BYU downed a punt there.The Cougars excellent special teams play continued as they blocked the forthcoming UNLV punt getting the ball at UNLV’s 5-yard line.Two plays later, BYU had their second short-field touchdown.That has to be a downer for a team’s defensive unit to be put into such crappy situations multiple times in the same game.
The coaching of special teams and their execution continued to have an effect in this game.With over 10 minutes to go in the game and only down by three points, UNLV was facing 4th and 3 from its own 34 yard line. The UNLV brain trust sends in their punter.But wait, the Rebels line up in a normal offensive set.except their punter is not back the normal 15 yards but only about 6 or 7 yards.BYU stays with their normal defense obviously not fooled at all.The punter throws a pass which is deflected by BYU.
Normally, when you fake a punt, don’t you really…. “fake the punt”?I don’t recall ever seeing a team put their punter in at basically the quarterback spot and go for it from a normal offensive set.Such is life as a UNLV fan. UNLV went on to lose the game as BYU scored the winning touchdown in the last two minutes of the game.
Shaky special teams play doesn’t always cost a team a straight-up win.However, when you are betting on games, it can have an effect on your bankroll.A fourth quarter missed extra point by the Nebraska kicker (who hadn’t missed a point after since his Pop Warner days) cost people who had Nebraska at -12 or higher a win (such as myself).
While the Nebraska incident is really just a ticked off gambler ranting, football bettors should pay attention to how a team’s special teams perform.The value of a good punter helped BYU beat UNLV.Starting field position on drives is extremely important.Look at the difference between team’s punters and return teams.Some coaches such as Frank Beamer and Urban Meyer always seem to have superior special teams.You might be surprised on how much influence special teams have on who wins the game and covers the point spread.
The first week of the NFL season is always full of surprises and yawns. Teams
that were projected to be good lay an egg and the predicted egg-layers turn out
a golden goose performance. What is great about the NFL, some teams will hold
to their first week form and others will do a 180 faster than a presidential
candidate (trying to be politically correct and not use names) does a flip-flop
on an issue.
Detroit no longer has Mike Martz as their offensive coordinator. There was a
lot of talk about implementing a ball control offense, the latest Matt Millen
chess move to bring the Lions to glory. I would say Millen is on the hot seat
to produce, but that has been said every year and it looks like Detroit will
have their eight straight losing season. It’s hard to win with a “ball control
offense” when an anemic Falcons’ offense led by BC rookie Matt Ryan puts up 14
points the first two times they have the ball. To add insult to the tame
felines defense, Atlanta’s initial TD’s were on 60+ yard plays.
So is Atlanta the surprise team of the NFC South that goes from last to first as
has been the case in recent history? Nah…they were playing the Lions. Matt
Ryan will realize he isn't playing against North Carolina State in Week 2 when
the Falcons travel to Tampa Bay. Detroit's Calvin Johnson will get some big
bucks when his contract is up and he can emigrate out of Michigan.
Cleveland’s one-hit wonder good season last year will be rehashed by all of the
dog pound this season. The Brown’s pass defense and pass rush against the
powerful Cowboys was non-existent. I feel real good with my UNDER bet on
Cleveland’s season wins.
Al Davis proves again that you can continuously destroy a once-proud franchise
and put a product on the field that will make their fans look even more stupid
and lame. It is no longer even fun to be a Raider Hater. How can you hate
something so pathetic?
Carolina reminds us all to not play against John Fox nor Jake Delhomme when they
are dogs getting points. San Diego is wounded right now, give them some time.
Things don’t look good for Seattle as they must have thought this was still the
preseason. Already missing two starting wide-outs, Nate Burleson’s knee injury
could make the Seahawks’ offense even more toothless (is that possible?).
Plenty of wings and brew were downed in Buffalo Sunday as the AFC East race
became wide open with Tom Brady going down. That new quarterback in the land of
the Jets is selling tickets and even the Dolphins have reason to be happy after
showing definite improvement from last year (there was only one way to go, but
the Fins did look better than many expected).
Regardless of how your team performed in Week 1 or what comments talking heads
or bloggers say, it was ONLY Week 1. The season can hold bigger surprises than
a former TV sportscaster from Alaska getting named as a Vice-Presidential
candidate.
