11/21/2008 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manny Harris scored 15 points, hit two big free throws in the waning seconds and blocked the potential tying shot at the end as Michigan upset fourth-ranked UCLA, 55-52, to reach the championship game of the 2K Sports Classic Benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer.
DeShawn Sims scored 18 for the Wolverines (3-0), who will take on Duke in the final Friday night. The Blue Devils beat Southern Illinois in the other semifinal.
Stu Douglass tallied 10 points for Michigan, which beat a ranked opponent on a neutral court for the first time since 1998.
Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday each scored 13 for the Bruins (2-1), while Nikola Dragovic scored 11 in defeat.
A Sims layup expanded Michigan to a 51-48 lead with 2 1/2 minutes left. The Wolverines could have essentially salted away the victory, but were whistled for a shot clock violation a minute later.
Josh Shipp then made 1-of-2 free throws with 56 seconds left, pulling the Bruins within two, but Sims jammed on a backdoor cut off a great bounce pass from Anthony Wright with 28.6 seconds remaining.
The Bruins then threw the ball out of bounds, but Sims missed the front end of a 1-and-1, and Dragovic nailed a three-pointer with five seconds left.
Harris sank two from the line less than a second later and then blocked Collison's potential tying shot at the end.
<< Big Ben plows Pittsburgh past Cincinnati
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ben Roethlisberger didn't let a bitter,
snowy night bother his throwing or running, totaling 243 yards passing with a
passing and rushing touchdown, as Pittsburgh methodically wore down
Cincinn
<< Flames edge Avs
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Miikka Kiprusoff needed to make just 18 stops to
post his second shutout of the season as the Calgary Flames edged the Colorado
Avalanche, 1-0, at the Pepsi Center.
Daymond Langkow scored the only goal of the ga
<< Gators power past Southern Utah
Gainesville, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nick Calathes scored 18 points, grabbed
seven rebounds and dished out four assists to lead 18th-ranked Florida over
Southern Utah, 64-50, at the O'Connell Center.
Dan Werner added nine points for the
<< Dwyer leads Georgia Tech past Miami
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jonathan Dwyer rushed for 128 yards and a pair
of touchdowns, and Georgia Tech rolled up 472 yards on the ground in a 41-23
romp of 23rd-ranked Miami-Florida.
Quarterback Josh Nesbitt ran for 93 yards and
Kings cool off Capitals >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Dustin Brown and Michal Handzus each had a
goal and an assist as the Los Angeles Kings beat Washington, 5-2, handing the
Capitals their first regular loss since November 1.
Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar an
Four share lead at Hong Kong Open >>
Hong Kong (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Louis Oosthuizen fired an eight-under 62 on
Friday to spotlight a four-way tie for the lead after the second round of the
Hong Kong Open.
Oliver Fisher (65), Chawalit Plaphol (66) and European Ryder Cup
Rockets face Wizards in D.C. >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Rockets will try to get back on the winning
track this evening, when they kick off a three-game road trip against the
Washington Wizards at the Verizon Center.
Houston will also visit Orlando and Miami, and is
K.G. returns to Minnesota as Celtics face Timberwolves >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Celtics forward Kevin Garnett didn't get a chance to play
against his former team in Minnesota last season because of an abdominal
strain. Garnett has been back at full strength for quite some time now and
will lead Boston to
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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