Bulldogs and Broncos battle in WCC affair

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/16/2012 - Santa Clara, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Desperate to put an end to a 13-game slide, the Santa Clara Broncos have the unenviable task of entertaining 24th-ranked Gonzaga in West Coast Conference action at the Leavey Center tonight.

Santa Clara, which hasn't put a tally in the win column since taking down Eastern Michigan on December 29 (75-55), is winless in 12 conference games this season. Last Saturday, the team was handed an 82-67 setback by league- leading Saint Mary's-CA on the road.

As for the Bulldogs, they are the ones giving chase to the Gaels in the standings, as SMC shows a 12-1 league mark and the Zags are 10-2 heading into action tonight. Gonzaga has won three straight and seven of the last eight contests overall, thanks to a 78-59 romp over Loyola Marymount last Saturday at home.

The Bulldogs easily won the first meeting of the season between these two teams with an 82-60 score on January 7 at home, which means the all-time series now favors Gonzaga by a count of 46-30. The hosts shot 54.5 percent from the floor in that meeting, while holding the Broncos to just 38.3 percent.

Four players scored in double figures for the Bulldogs over the weekend against LMU, paced by Kevin Pangos who not only dropped in 21 points on 5-of-7 shooting behind the three-point line, but he also handed out nine assists. Elias Harris registered a double-double with 17 points and 15 rebounds, followed by Guy Landry Edi and Robert Sacre with 13 points apiece, the team finishing the evening hitting on 51.9 percent from the floor. Pangos now holds the overall scoring lead for the program with 13.9 ppg, shooting an impressive 41.1 percent behind the three-point line. Also playing well out on the perimeter is Gary Bell (9.7 ppg), who has knocked down 42.1 percent of his triples, but beyond those two there aren't too many deep threats lurking on the bench for the Bulldogs. Harris (13.2 ppg, 8.1 rpg) has done a lot to take some of the pressure off Sacre (11.8 ppg, 6.6 rpg), which means the latter might be a bit more fresh for when the postseason rolls around.

Considering the meeting was tied seven times and experienced eight lead changes, the Broncos should have been able to keep the game against the Gaels a bit closer, but that wasn't the case down the stretch. Denzel Johnson led three players in double figures for SCU with his 17 points, although he shot just 8-of-20 from the floor and didn't make it to the free-throw line a single time in 37 minutes of action. Niyi Harrison pitched in with 12 points and six rebounds and Brandon Clark added 10 points and six assists in the setback. As if the team didn't have enough troubles, leading scorer Kevin Foster (17.8 ppg) has been suspended since late last month, which means Evan Roquemore is now the active leading scorer by default with his 13.8 ppg. Foster was also the three-point specialist for the Broncos, averaging almost four conversions per game, and that's why the team has been able to average 70.6 ppg.

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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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