NBA Betting News, Match-Ups and Trends For Wednesday 11/13/24

Wednesday’s 6-pack:
Six most experienced college basketball teams (team continuity in parenthesis):
— Ole Miss (127)
— Kansas (104)
— Xavier (219)
— Nevada (111)
— Kentucky (349)
— Memphis (317)

Teams with the high continuity #’s are poaching lot of transfers.

Quote of the Day 
“He’s like the random older dude that pulls up to the court and you’re kind of like, ‘alright he’s whatever,’ and then you pick him up and he’s making the craziest passes. Not moving too much, not doing the most. But he’s just got the OG game like he’s been playing forever.”
Photographer Xavier Luggage, talking about actor Adam Sandler playing pick-up basketball

Wednesday’s quiz
Where did Klay Thompson play his college basketball?

Tuesday’s quiz
Los Angeles Clippers have existed since 1970, but they’ve played home games in two other cities. Their first eight years in the NBA, the Clippers were the Buffalo Braves, before they moved to San Diego and became the Clippers.

Monday’s quiz
Oakland A’s drafted Cardinals’ QB Kyler Murray with the 9th pick in the 2018 draft.

“On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife…….”

So began all 114 episodes of The Odd Couple, one of the funniest TV shows ever; spent ton of time in my high school/college years watching Odd Couple re-runs.

Jack Klugman/Tony Randall were a great team, playing totally opposite roommates who were both divorced. Episodes are on Paramount these days: I recommend the episode where they own a greyhound racing dog and another episode where Oscar dates a princess.

Happy Felix Unger Day!!!

— Kansas 77, Michigan State 69
Teams combined to shoot 8-41 on the arc; a brickfest.
Kansas already has wins over North Carolina and the Spartans.

Modern college basketball; one of Michigan State’s starters is Frankie Fidler, who played three years for a Nebraska-Omaha squad that went 15-37 in the Summit League those three years. Lat year, Summit League was the 23rd-ranked league in the country.

— Kentucky 77, Duke 72
Kentucky’s youngest starter is older than Duke’s oldest starter, but Kentucky is also in the bottom 15 in the country in continuity- will take them some time to develop their chemistry- this is a great win for them.

Duke led this game 46-37 at halftime.
Kentucky’s subs outscored Duke’s bench, 25-6.

Modern college basketball, part 2:
Kerr Kriisa plays for Kentucky; he’ll be 24 on January 2nd.
2020-23- He played in 76 games over three seasons for Arizona.
2023-24- He played in 23 games for West Virginia.
2024-25- He is part of the total rebuild that is this year’s Kentucky team.

— There were seven college basketball referees who worked the first seven days of the season; college refs make a boatload of $$$, some of them traveling all over the country.

— Will be interesting to follow Rick Pitino’s St John’s squad this year; Red Storm hasn’t been in the NCAA’s since 2019, hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000.

— Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren hurt his hip, is out 8-10 weeks; he was scoring 16.4 ppg, grabbing 8.7 rebounds/game in his second NBA season— actually his third year, he didn’t play his first year.

— LA Clippers have a brand-new arena that is supposed to be awesome; every player’s locker has room for 32 pairs of sneakers (64 sneakers!!!)

— Famous birthdays, November 13
Joe Mantegna, 77
Chris Noth, 70
Whoopi Goldberg, 68
Vinny Testaverde, 61
Kevin Gamble, 59

Jimmy Kimmel, 57
Steve Christie, 57
Gerard Butler 54
Wade Miley, 38
Brett Baty, 25

— Chicago Bears fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron less than 10 months after he got the job. Bears are 4-5, losing their last three games while scoring a total of 27 points- they don’t have a touchdown on their last 23 drives.

Ummmm……starting a rookie QB can be dicey, no matter how good they are. Payton Manning, Troy Aikman both sucked as rookies; they’re both in the Hall of Fame. Patrick Mahomes didn’t start until the last game of his rookie year, which seems like a better way to go, but the Bears are force-feeding rookie QB Caleb Williams, and it cost Waldron his job.

— Catcher Travis d’Arnaud signed a 2-year, $12M deal with the Los Angeles Angels; d’Arnaud hit .225/.238 the last two years as a part-time player.

— USC is changing QB’s this week; starter Miller Moss is getting benched, former UNLV QB Jayden Maiava will get his first USC start against Nebraska, fueling rumors that Miller will be packing his bags and transferring for his final year of college eligibility.

— Hawks 117, Celtics 116- Dyson Daniels scored a career-high 28 points as Atlanta won as an underdog of 15.5 points.

— Pistons 123, Heat 121 OT- Miami called a timeout they didn’t have with 0:01.1 left, and Detroit hit the game-winning foul shot, after blowing a 9-point 4th quarter lead. Tyler Herro scored 40 points for the Heat, making 10-17 shots on the arc.

— Knicks 111, 76ers 99- OG Anunoby scored 24 points as New York spoiled Joel Embiid’s debut this season. Embiid scored 13 points in 26:00 for the struggling 76ers, who are 2-8.

— Suns 120, Jazz 112- Devin Booker scored 31 points for Phoenix, which made 18-39 shots on the arc. Suns are off to a 9-2 start this season.