Betting Notes - Bowls
By Micah Roberts
Prior to Hawaii falling badly to Tulsa as a 10½-point home ‘chalk’ in the Hawaii Bowl, the favorites of the first six bowl games had all covered. Even though there is no correlation with one game to another, it always seems like during the stretch run we’re about to see this week, that this is the time frame when things always level off in the favorite to underdog ratio.
The trend of taking underdogs at +8 or higher in pre-New Year’s day bowls is 1-2 thus far, but if playing money lines, you’re well ahead with Tulsa. This week we have two other opportunities to make the trend hold up with Army getting eight points against SMU in the Armed Forces Bowl and Washington getting 13 against Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.
Even though the Huskies got blasted at home by the Cornhuskers 56-21 in September, it’s safe to say that Nebraska’s current squad isn’t the same amid several internal squabbles, the main one being quarterback Taylor Martinez who orchestrated all those early season blow outs. While Nebraska comes in somewhat of a team in disarray, Washington comes in having rallied to make a bowl by winning their final three games. The major wild card in all this is Huskies quarterback Jake Locker who has the ability to single handedly take over games. I’ll take the points in this one and look for Locker to close out his collegiate career with a great performance.
Before I get to my favorite bowl game of the week, I’ll let you know that I also have action on Notre Dame +3 over Miami in the Sun Bowl, South Carolina -3 against Florida State in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl and Michigan +5 ½ over Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.
When reflecting back just four years ago, it’s amazing to believe that the Stanford Cardinal (11-1) were 1-11. It’s seems inconceivable that a major player in the BCS game could just sprout of the ground from nothing, but here they are, the No. 5 team in the nation being piloted by the probable No. 1 pick in the NFL draft with Andrew Luck. Monday’s Orange Bowl matchup with Virginia Tech (11-2) will be the first meeting ever between the two schools and will mark the first time that an ACC school has faced a Pac 10 team in the Orange Bowl.
Virginia Tech can also say they have had a major turnaround of sorts after starting the season 0-2 with a season opening loss to Boise State and then the let-down game the very next week at home against James Madison. The Hokies got back to basics, played their traditionally tough defense and won out, securing their fourth ACC title since joining the league in 2004 and won at least 10 games for the seventh straight year, the only team currently in the nation to do so.
The transformation of Stanford into a power house can be attributed to Luck’s play, but much of the credit for creating a winning atmosphere and schemes to get the job done have to be given to head coach Jim Harbaugh who took over in 2007. He has mixed the best of both worlds into his offensive attack stemming from his college playing days as the quarterback for Bo Schembechler’s Michigan teams along with adding some modern wrinkles. The combination of old and new styles has worked brilliantly as Stanford has one of the most balanced attacks in the country.
Stanford will be Virginia Tech’s second team they have faced this season that was top-10 in the nation in passing efficiency. Boise State was the other. Had it not been for a second half melt down at Oregon, a game they led 31-24 at the half, Stanford would be playing Auburn for the title game. Laying only 3 ½-points with one of the top teams in the nation that can beat you so many ways, against a team that padded their record against weak ACC teams, seems like one of the better bets in New Years day bowls and beyond. Stanford 38, Virginia Tech 21
Twitter Value
Information is the name of the game for both bookmakers and bettors and currently, there’s nowhere does sports information come quicker than on Twitter. Last week alone, there were two major occurrences where key information was found first on Twitter before any of the sportsbooks paid services relayed the info. On Tuesday night, the Kansas State basketball team had its two best players, including pre-season All-American Jacob Pullen, suspended for their game against UNLV. The news was first displayed on Twitter and didn’t reach the books until 20 minutes later giving a huge window of opportunity for bettors to take advantage of the info. K-State was a 4-point favorite prior to news of the suspensions and closed at -2. The Rebels won outright in a game that probably should been shaded closer to UNLV being a slight favorite after the news was known.
Another opportunity occurred Wednesday where rumors of Ohio State’s star football players might be suspended, including quarterback Terrelle Pryor, were swirling abound from quality sources on Twitter over an hour before news got to the sports books from their paid consultants. Even though it was revealed a day later that the NCAA would strangely allow the five players to play in their Bowl game and begin their 5-game suspensions next season, there was a large gap where the books were left unprotected with lack of information. Had the players been out for their Bowl game, Arkansas likely would have been a 6-point favorite or higher making it a 10-point swing.
For bettors looking to take advantage of this relatively new phenomenon, just sign up for a free account, follow a few sports writers around the country and ask to see key words such as “injury”, “suspension” or the actual name of a player your waiting information on. You’ll be surprised at how information comes just a little quicker than everyone else’s does. Quality information that I do see, I pass along as a re-tweet. You can follow me at MicahRoberts7.
College Basketball
It was kind of a quiet week over the Holiday weekend in college hoops, but we were further enlightened to a few teams that may have been perhaps rated too high as Baylor, Michigan State and Tennessee all took a step backwards with losses. Of the three, Michigan State will be the team to keep trusting as they head into conference play this week. They have four losses on the season, but all four have come at the hands of teams currently ranked. Last week it was Texas taking down the Spartans and before that, it was Syracuse, Duke and Connecticut, a regular who’s who of college basketball this season.
Baylor’s 77-71 loss to Washington State in Hawaii as a 4-point favorite came as somewhat of a surprise even though the Cougars had been 9-1 coming in. Two days later, WSU lost to Butler as a 2-point favorite. We’re all still trying to figure out who the best team is in the weak Pac 10, but based on the play thus far, it could be the Cougars. Klay Thompson is averaging 22.3 point-per-game, up 3-points from his sophomore season last year. WSU can take a major step in taking conference supremacy this week on the road by doing the L.A. two-step and taking out UCLA and USC, something that seems entirely possible despite both USC and UCLA playing good basketball right now.
Tennessee is a team fading fast and at some point the rating on them may be adjusted too much giving them value. But let’s wait and see where they level off at, because they are free falling like rarely seen from a team that was once ranked in the top-10 after beating the likes of Villanova and Pittsburgh earlier in the year. They ended their three-game losing streak by sweating out a home win against Belmont 66-65. This week they should be able to rebound with home games against Tennessee-Martin and Charleston before a big Jan. 5 game against in-state rival Memphis. Then, the eight-game SEC suspension of coach Bruce Pearl begins.
The games of the week both feature No. 18 Notre Dame (11-1) as they head into Big East play as one of the major surprises of the season so far. They welcome No. 9 Georgetown (11-1) on Wednesday then go to No. 5 Syracuse (13-0) Sunday. If their fate hasn’t been decided by then as to where they stack up, the following Tuesday they play No. 4 Connecticut (10-0).
The Irish have played only one ranked opponent this season and lost 72-58 to Kentucky. Look for them to play Georgetown tough and squeak out a home win, but to stumble by 10 at Syracuse. Based on those games and how they stand up to the class of the conference, a better assessment can be made for how they’ll perform for their Jan. 4 game with U-Conn.