Bulldogs seek WCC perfection against Gaels

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/09/2009 - Las Vegas, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs haven't lost a single West Coast Conference game all season, and they are clearly favored in tonight's WCC title game against second-seeded Saint Mary's. The winner will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Saint Mary's has only one WCC tourney title, and that came back in 1997. The Gaels showed a great deal of poise and toughness to outlast the University of Portland last night by a 71-61 final in the semifinal round. The Gaels have now won their last six outings and own a 25-5 overall record.

As for Gonzaga, it ripped through the regular season, going a perfect 14-0 in the WCC en route to its ninth straight title and 11th in the last 12 years. The undefeated campaign was the third in the last six seasons for the Bulldogs, who are riding a seven-game win streak overall. Gonzaga has won an unmatched nine WCC Tournament titles and has appeared in the championship game 11 years in a row. The Bulldogs did, however, have their run of four straight championships come to an end with a loss to San Diego in the finals last season. Last night, Gonzaga crushed Santa Clara by a 94-59 final to earn a spot in tonight's tilt.

Thanks to a pair of narrow wins over the Gaels during the regular season, the Zags have pushed their series lead to 47-23 over Saint Mary's.

Patrick Mills is back for Saint Mary's, and the dynamic point guard gives the Gaels a legitimate shot to win tonight's showdown. Mills played 35 minutes against Portland, his much-anticipated return to action after missing eight games with a broken hand, and he finished with 12 points, the same total as teammates Omar Samhan and Carlin Hughes. Samhan also pulled down 13 rebounds, while Diamon Simpson posted 15 points and 14 boards. Adding further balance to the lineup for the Gaels was Wayne Hunter with 13 points. Saint Mary's earned an 18-2 edge in points from the foul line, an obvious key to victory. Mills is averaging 18.7 ppg and 3.9 apg, and he is one of the better point guards in all of college basketball. Samhan provides 13.7 ppg and 9.2 rpg, while Simpson is posting 13.6 ppg and 10.7 rpg.

Austin Daye was sensational for Gonzaga against Santa Clara on Sunday, as the forward poured in a career-high 28 points on the strength of a 10-of-13 shooting effort from the field. Point guard Jeremy Pargo contributed 16 points and five assists, while Micah Downs buried 4-of-5 three-pointers en route to 18 points. Steven Gray had 12 points off the bench for the Zags, and Matt Bouldin finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Gonzaga connected on 55.9 percent of its field goal attempts in the clash, including a stellar 13-of-22 showing from behind the arc. The fact that the club also forced 22 turnovers was key. Josh Heytvelt was limited to three points in 27 minutes of action against Santa Clara last night, but the Gonzaga standout is still posting 14.8 ppg and 6.7 rpg. Bouldin (13.7 ppg) and Daye (13.1 ppg, 6.9 rpg) are both consistent contributors, while Pargo, Gray and Downs all play major roles as well.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

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. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

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).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

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.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

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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