Longhorns and Bears meet in Big 12 Tournament

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/11/2010 - Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 21st-ranked Baylor Bears are seeded third in the Big 12 Conference Tournament, and they will begin action in the event tonight with a quarterfinal-round matchup against the sixth-seeded Texas Longhorns.

Up next for the winner is a date with either second-seeded Kansas State or seventh-seeded Oklahoma State.

Texas was defeated by Kansas in three straight Big 12 title games from 2006-2008. The Longhorns have never won this tournament and are 17-13 in the event all-time. They are 23-8 this season, but the campaign has clearly been a tale of two halves. After jumping out to a 17-0 start to earn the nation's top ranking, Texas lost eight of its next 14 games. Fortunately, the team was able to earn an 82-75 victory over Iowa State yesterday in the first round of this event.

Baylor has never won the Big 12 Conference Tournament and is 8-12 all-time at this event. Scott Drew has done a phenomenal job of resurrecting a program that was in peril when he arrived, and the 2009-10 Bears own a 24-6 overall record, including 11-5 in Big 12 play. They carry a four-game win streak into this tournament and are coming off a 15-point romp over these same Longhorns in the regular-season finale.

Baylor has beaten Texas twice this season, but the Longhorns still own a commanding 155-78 advantage in the all-time series.

Damion James exploded for 28 points and 16 rebounds to power his Longhorns to the seven-point victory over Iowa State yesterday. Gary Johnson racked up 15 points and 10 boards for Texas, Dexter Pittman helped the Longhorns with 16 points, and Avery Bradley added 10 points. Texas scored the first seven points of the game and owned a 31-28 lead at intermission. The contest was close in the second half until an 11-0 run enabled the Longhorns to pull away for good. Texas earned a 46-34 rebounding advantage in the showdown, a key to the victory. James is posting 18.0 ppg and 10.4 rpg this season, and the fact that he also has 52 steals and 38 blocks to his credit speaks to his tremendous versatility. Bradley checks in with 11.7 ppg for the 'Horns, who are getting 10.5 ppg from Pittman. Texas is racking up 81.7 ppg while holding foes to 69.2 ppg on 39.8 percent shooting.

There is no doubt that Baylor gets the job done at the offensive end of the floor, as it is netting 77.4 ppg on 48.6 percent shooting from the field, including 39.1 percent from three-point range. What is rarely mentioned however, is that the team excels at the defensive end as well, limiting opponents to 65.3 ppg on 38.2 percent shooting from the floor. The Bears are tremendous on the boards, ripping down 7.4 rpg more than the opposition. LaceDarius Dunn leads the club with 19.2 ppg on the strength of his 42.4 percent shooting from three-point range. Tweety Carter provides 15.8 ppg, and he has dished out 164 assists while committing a mere 67 turnovers. As for Ekpe Udoh, he adds 13.4 ppg, 9.8 rpg and 123 blocked shots. Udoh is second on the team in assists as well, proof of his tremendous versatility. Dunn scored 30 points in the regular-season finale against Texas, and Quincy Acy had 10 dunks en route to 24 points off the bench.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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