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Dustin Ware scored 12 points to lead Georgia (10-10, 1-5) and Nemanja Djurisic had 10. The Bulldogs have lost five of their last six games overall and four of their last five against Kentucky at home.
Winston-Salem, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 23rd-ranked Florida State Seminoles are back at it tonight as they head to Lawrence Joel Coliseum for an Atlantic Coast Conference battle with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. This will be the 43rd meeting in the all-time series. The Demon Deacons hold a 23-19 edge in the advantage coming into tonight despite Florida State winning the last three encounters.
Snaer is the Seminoles' go-to-guy as he leads the team with an average of 13.5 ppg. The junior guard seems to have elevated his play against top competition as he has averaged 16.6 ppg in his last three outings. Ian Miller is the team's second leading scorer with an average of 12.3 ppg. Miller has gone 7- of-12 from the floor to score 25 points total in his last two games. Bernard James provides a tough inside presence for Hamilton's squad. James contributes 10.5 ppg and 8.8 rpg.
Des Moines, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 15th-ranked Creighton Bluejays will try to win their ninth in a row as they head to the Knapp Center for a Missouri Valley Conference clash with the Drake Bulldogs. This will be the 149th meeting in the all-time series. The Bluejays hold a 90-58 edge in the rivalry after winning 16 of the last 24 encounters, including a 76-59 decision in Omaha earlier this month. Creighton shot 60 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from beyond the arc, while Drake made 38.5 percent of its field goals and just 5-of-19 from three-point range in this year's earlier meeting.
The Bluejays are off to a 18-2 start this season after handling Indiana State 75-49 on Saturday. The Bluejays shot 43.6 percent from the floor and connected on 11-of-24 attempts from long range in the contest. Head coach Greg McDermott has his team playing very well both at home and on the road this year. If the Bluejays win tonight, they will have won six-straight road games for the first time in program history since 1975. Creighton is ranked first in the nation in field goal percentage (51.4) and second in assists (19.2). The Bluejays 81.4 ppg on the offensive end is the best in the MVC this year.
The Bulldogs have won two in a row at home and 13 of their last 14 at the Knapp Center coming into tonight. However, Drake had its four-game winning streak snapped its last time out as it fell 66-52 at Northern Iowa. The Bulldogs struggled from the floor, making 38.2 percent of their field goals in the loss. Head coach Mark Phelps has led the team to a 12-8 overall record and a 5-4 mark in MVC play. Drake is tied for third in the conference coming into this one. The Bulldogs are scoring 68.3 ppg while allowing opponents to net 67.3 ppg.
Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The fourth-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes continue their run through the Big Ten as they welcome the Penn State Nittany Lions to Columbus for a conference showdown at Value City Arena. Thad Matta's Buckeyes are an impressive 51-1 at home over the last three seasons, including a 14-0 mark in 2011-12. However, OSU was on the road this past weekend, blowing out Nebraska in Lincoln, 79-45. With the win, the Buckeyes moved to 5-2 in-conference.
Penn State led 29-27 at the half in Bloomington, but Indiana came roaring back in the second half, hitting 65 percent from the floor in posting a 19-point win over the Nittany Lions. Tim Frazier once again led the way offensively, netting 21 points, on 7-of-18 shooting. Nick Colella added 11 points off the bench, but PSU managed a mere 22.7 percent shooting accuracy in the second half, hitting just five field goals over the final 20 minutes of action. It has been a lot of the same all season long for Penn State, which has a prolific scorer in Frazier, but little else behind him. Frazier is performing at an All-American level this season, averaging 18.0 points and 6.4 assists per game. Unfortunately, there isn't much offensive support, as Jermaine Marshall represents the next highest scorer at just 9.8 ppg.
Double-digit Scorers Into Goal Efficiency Field Goal Efficiency >>
Minutes Carries Run Into Lead >>
It's less than a month until the NHL hockey betting season opens at MySportsbook.com and preparations are underway for another battle in the race to hoist Lord Stanley's mug in 2007.
As cup crazy fans prepare to place their bets, one online sportsbook ,MySportsbook.com, is offering hockey betting lines on the 2007/2007 Stanley Cup , who will bring it home this upcoming season.
Despite a poor showing in last season's playoffs and the loss of Steve Yzerman to retirement, the Detroit Red Wings are early favourites at this online sportsbook with wagering odds of 6-1. The Wings will look to offensive powerhouse Pavel Datsyuk and newly appointed captain Nicklas Lidstrom to lead one of the league's most prominent franchises.
Always a threat are the Ottawa Senators, with newly acquired goaltender Martin Gerber from the Stanley Cup champion ,Carolina Hurricanes. The Sens are second best in the rankings at a 7-1 bet, and odds makers at this sportsbook are optimistic that the Ottawa squad will fare better than last season's Eastern Conference semi-final upset to the Buffalo Sabres.
Also worth noting are the defending Stanley Cup champs Carolina Hurricanes, a 10-1 bet to repeat. Behind the Canes are the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia Flyers, and Anaheim Mighty Ducks all sit at 12-1. In the basement are the Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, and St. Louis Blues who all have 100-1 odds to win.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your hockey betting needs.
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.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
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