Bears and 'Horns meet in clash of ranked Big 12 adversaries
NCAA Basketball Betting Lines
01/30/2010 - Austin, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-25 foes meet up in Austin this afternoon, as the sixth-ranked Texas Longhorns welcome the 24th-ranked Baylor Bears to the Erwin Center for a key Big 12 matchup.
The Longhorns were ranked number one in the country last week, but a pair of losses to Kansas State (71-62) and UConn 88-74) saw the team take a dive in the rankings all the way to number sixth. Rick Barnes' squad got back to its winning ways this week, moving to 4-1 in Big 12 play with a 95-83 win over Texas Tech.
Scott's Drew's Bears are a dangerous team, winning 15 of their first 19 games. However, the team has found things a bit tougher in conference play at just 2-3. The team has dropped two of its last three games overall, including a heart-breaking 76-74 decision at home to Kansas State this week.
Texas holds a 155-76 advantage in the all-time series with their Lone Star State rival, including wins in 24 of the 25 meetings with Barnes at the helm. However, it was Baylor edging out Texas in the last meeting, 76-70 in the semifinals of last year's Big 12 Tournament. Texas has won 11 straight over Baylor in Austin.
Baylor has the ability to beat any team thanks to stellar offensive numbers. The team is averaging a steady 78.3 ppg and doing it on an impressive .493 shooting. The shooting accuracy extends beyond the arc as well at a .402 clip. LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter represent one of the most productive backcourt tandems in the nation. Dunn leads the team with 18.7 ppg, followed closely by Carter's 16.7 ppg. The pair have combined for 109 of the team's 147 three-pointers to date. Ekpe Udoh provides the perfect complement in the frontcourt, with his double-double average of 14.0 points and 10.9 rebounds per game. Baylor struggled shooting the ball against Kansas State (40 percent), but was still in the game until KSU's Jacob Pullen converted a pair of free-throws in the waning moments to give the Wildcats the two-point win. The loss spoiled a strong outing from Carter, who led the team with 23 points. Anthony Jones added 12 points, followed by Quincy Acy's 10. Dunn suffered one of his worst outings, hitting a mere 3-of-14 shots from the floor and finishing with just nine points.
After two straight shoddy performances last week, Texas got back to its dominant form against Texas Tech, racking up 95 points on a blistering 55.2 percent shooting. The team also controlled the boards, outrebounding the Red Raiders, 46-27. All five starters finished in double figures for UT, led by Damion James' 28-point, 13-rebound effort. Justin Mason poured in 18 points, followed by Avery Bradley (14 pts), Dogus Balbay (13 pts) and Dexter Pittman (10 pts). When Texas is on at the offensive end, very few teams have the firepower to keep up. The Longhorns come into this game averaging a robust 85.7 ppg, on .487 shooting. James is a monster inside, leading the team in both scoring (18.2 ppg) and rebounding (10.9 rpg). Bradley and Pittman round out the top scoring threats at 12.4 and 12.0 ppg, respectively. In addition to a strong offensive game, Texas likes to impose its will on the boards, where the team boasts of an impressive +8.2 rebounding margin (ninth nationally).
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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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