Patriot League Tournament Recaps

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/07/2010 - Easton, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jared Mintz hit the go-ahead jumper with 35 seconds left and finished with 14 points, as Lafayette held on for a 66-63 win over Holy Cross in the Patriot League semifinal.

Jim Mower had a team-high 17 points, while Ryan Willen ended with 15 points for Lafayette (19-12), which will play top-seeded Lehigh for the conference title on Friday.

R.J. Evans led all scorers with 21 points to go along with seven rebounds, while Mike Cavataio went for 14 points and seven boards for Holy Cross (9-22), which defeated Bucknell in the quarterfinals. The Crusaders have dropped five of their last seven overall.

Lafayette held a 39-30 lead after the opening 20 minutes and maintained the advantage until Evans' layup allowed Holy Cross to come back and tie it at 55- all with 7:25 left.

Things would then go back-and-forth for the remaining time on the clock and with Holy Cross ahead by a point, 61-60, with 2:38 to play, Willen made a pair of free throws to put the Leopards back in front with 2:17 to go.

However, Cavataio's tip-in with 56 seconds left put the Crusaders up 63-62, but Mintz would answer with a jumper with 35 ticks remaining to make it a 64-63 game in favor of Lafayette. Mintz's two free throws gave the Leopards a three-point advantage with six seconds to go and Evans' attempted three in the final seconds was off the mark.

Final Score: Lehigh 79, American 57

Bethlehem, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - CJ McCollum poured in 22 points and Dave Buchberger added 16, as Lehigh rolled to a 79-57 victory over American to advance to the Patriot League final.

Zahir Carrington posted 10 points and 11 rebounds, and Marquis Hall chipped in 11 points for the top-seeded Mountain Hawks (21-10), who will face Lafayette for the conference title on Friday.

Stephen Lumpkins led American (11-20) with 15 points and nine rebounds. Steve Luptak scored 14, and Nick Hendra had 11 in the loss.

Lehigh scored the first 11 points of the game and made half of its 30 first- half field goals en route to taking a commanding 39-21 lead.

American improved on its 33.3 percent shooting effort from the first half but never seriously threatened the daunting deficit.

Wwwteleport NCAA Basketball Betting News

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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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