Wolf Pack host Bulldogs in Reno

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/25/2007 - Reno, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 18th-ranked Nevada Wolf Pack try to bounce back from their first Western Athletic Conference loss of the season as they hit the floor of the Lawlor Events Center in Reno tonight versus the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.

Nevada, which opened the 2006-07 campaign with seven straight wins before being halted by in-state rival UNLV, had won 10 games in a row prior to the meeting with a resurgent New Mexico State program on Saturday. The clash in Las Cruces resulted in an 80-73 win for the home team and also locked both NMSU and Nevada in a first-place tie in the WAC standings at 5-1.

Just below the pair is Louisiana Tech with a mark of 4-2 in conference, despite winning just two of 12 non-league outings early on. The Bulldogs managed to post their second set of back-to-back wins this month on Saturday when they slipped by Idaho on the road by a score of 73-72. Three nights earlier, Tech had to go to overtime to stun New Mexico State by a basket, 73-71.

With respect to the all-time series between these two schools on the hardwood, the Pack are now ahead by a count of 8-3 after dropping three of the first four meetings with LaTech. Nevada has now run off seven straight victories in the relationship thanks to a narrow 50-49 decision in Reno a season ago.

Ahead by as many as seven points with under two and a half minutes to play, the Bulldogs had to hold on for the one-point win against Idaho on Saturday at the Cowan Spectrum. Trey McDowell, who was recently named the WAC Player of the Week for the second time this season, finished with a team- high 25 points, followed by Jerome Richardson and Chad McKenzie with 15 and 12 points, respectively, with both clearing eight rebounds as well. McKenzie, who shot just 4-of-14 from the field, ended up fouling out, but not before he posted three assists and three steals. Harry Disy came up a point shy of a double-double as he grabbed 11 boards. McKenzie currently leads the team in scoring overall this season with his 12.8 ppg, but despite coming off the bench in eight of the 17 games in which he has appeared, McDowell is now right on his tail with 12.6 ppg. However, McDowell is far from a complete player because he has just 18 assists and is shooting a mere 50 percent at the free-throw line for a team that is currently converting only 63.9 percent at the stripe. Also working against the Bulldogs is their 40.5 percent accuracy from the field and 30.2 percent shooting out on the perimeter.

Back on the floor for the Wolf Pack in his second game after suffering an ankle injury, Nick Fazekas got a first-hand look at why the Aggies were expected to contend for the league title this season. Fazekas finished the contest with 21 points and seven rebounds but also found himself on the bench with foul trouble during key moments down the stretch. Ramon Sessions tallied a team-high 23 points, followed by Marcelus Kemp with 14 and a team- high eight boards in the setback as well. In previous years, Fazekas would try to impress people with his outside shooting, but this season he has opted to remain in the paint for the most part, resulting in team-highs of 20.4 ppg and 11.6 rpg, the latter placing among the nation's best. Kemp, who carried much of the load in the absence of Fazekas, checks in with 19.1 ppg and is shooting 42.1 percent from three-point range for a team that is knocking down an impressive 41.9 ppg. Combine that with shooting 48.8 percent from the field overall, and holding opponents to just 40 percent, and the Pack are clearly one of the top teams in the nation.

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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