College Betting Notes
By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
They say “Every dog has its day” but for USC basketball, they’re finding that hard to believe. It’s been a tough season for the school that prides itself in all athletics with “Fight On” being their battle cry from the Spirit of Troy marching band. The more appropriate term for this season’s basketball program should be “Roll Over” as they have gone 6-20 and 1-12 in Pac 12 play.
For Las Vegas bettors, they are loving USC basketball because they have become one of the most reliable bets of the season. It’s supposed to get tougher to handicap when conference play starts, but USC has made it easier than ever by just betting against them.
Following Sunday’s 59-47 home loss to Stanford, USC has not covered in four straight games, and have gone 3-10 against the spread in conference play. Their only win since beating TCU in mid-December was beating the Pac-12’s second worst team, Utah, three weeks ago.
"It is incumbent to try our hardest as we go down the stretch," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said before their game Sunday. "Our circumstance stinks. It's the culmination of a lot of things. (But) we need to keep the integrity of playing hard every day.
"You have a job to do and you do it as hard as you can as long as you can."
The remaining schedule for the Trojans doesn’t look promising for a win to be captured as they’ll play at Arizona and Arizona State this weekend and close out with Washington and Washington State at home. They’ll be the No. 12 seed in the Pac-12 tournament with a first round game that looks to be either versus Oregon, Colorado or Arizona as the No. 5 seed.
It’s odd that USC would be at the depths of where they’re at now because last season they looked like they were on the rise following the shame that O.J. Mayo and Tim Floyd put the program in that led to a forfeiture of all wins in 2007-2008 and a one year postseason ban. Meanwhile, Floyd, who claimed to not know anything about payments to Mayo, is head coach of UTEP with no sanctions placed on him personally.
There's always next year, “Fight On!”
Mighty Sparty
No. 12 Michigan State’s impressive 58-48 victory at No. 3 Ohio State last Saturday as a 9-point underdog put the school in a tie atop the Big Ten standings with the Buckeyes at 9-3. The Spartans lost their first two games of the season to North Carolina and Duke, but then reeled off 15 wins in a row before losing at Northwestern and Michigan. Two weeks later they experienced another bad loss at Illinois, but since then have won and covered their last three.
In Saturday’s game at Columbus, they harassed Jared Sullinger all day and forced him into a rare, dubious triple-double (17 PTS - 16 REB - 10 TOs) on 5-of-15 shooting. Because this Michigan State team is so sound with defending and rebounding, they have held true, or better, to their rating and have been one of the better teams ATS this season. They have covered 10 of their last 13 games with their only non-covers coming on the road in losses.
They still have three tough road games left at Purdue, Minnesota and Indiana, then close out the season with a match against the Buckeyes on Mar. 4 at home.
Because of looking the best team form the top RPI conference, it may not be a bad bet to take a chance on the Spartans to win the NCAA Tournament at the 20/1 odds, which are offered at the LVH Super Book. Defense doesn’t always win championships in college basketball, but it will keep you in games on a poor shooting night.
Hot Teams
Coming out of nowhere to play some great basketball lately has been Delaware, who has won and covered its last four games, three of which came as an underdog, including a big 80-77 win at Georgia State Saturday as a 10½-point underdog. The Hens have now covered seven of their last eight games.
North Texas continues to cover games at a rapid pace making it 11 straight games with its trip to Florida for two games last week. Still not quite sure how they blew a big lead to Florida Atlantic to get to overtime and then lose by 5 (81-86), but they were getting 5½-points, so it turned out well if you rode the steak.
Louisiana-Monroe has covered in four straight despite being in the midst of an eight-game losing streak. They’ve been big underdogs for most of the year. In fact, they‘ve been the underdog in every game they played this season, but have gone 10-9 ATS.
Tennessee State is on a seven-game winning streak and has covered its last four, including Thursday’s big upset win at Murray State as a 12-point underdog. For Murray State, perhaps the loss is what they needed to refocus on the season and lose the thought of going undefeated. They handled Austin Peay by 19 on Saturday, their first cover in four weeks.
Yale has won four of its last five games and has covered four games in a row.
Boston College is in the same boat playing great lately with four straight covers, including a big win as 14-point underdogs against Florida State last Wednesday. The Seminoles have not covered in their last three games after reeling off six straight.
Louisville had won and covered its last six games heading into Monday night’s home game against Syracuse.
Cold Teams
Creighton has lost its last three games, all of which it was favored in. The 21-point (89-68) beat down on their home court Saturday by Wichita State may be an indication this tired team is ripe to bet against. In a week-and-a-half, they have gone from leading the MVC to being two full games behind Wichita State.
Middle Tennessee State has won three of its last four, but hasn’t covered any of the four.
Virginia Tech has gone 1-10 in its last 11 ATS and hasn’t covered its last six.
West Virginia has cooled considerably losing five of its last six and covering only once in its last seven.