Bruins begin defense of tourney title against Cougars

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/12/2009 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 15th-ranked UCLA Bruins begin defense of their Pac-10 Tournament title, as they take on the Washington State Cougars in quarterfinal action from the Staples Center this evening.

Ben Howland's Bruins were in the hunt for the regular season crown in the Pac-10 all year long, but could not climb past the Washington Huskies, who finished one game ahead of UCLA, relegating the Bruins to the two-seed for this event. Still, with wins in four straight games to close out the regular season, UCLA remains one of the more dangerous teams in this event.

The Cougars advanced to this game thanks to a rather easy 62-40 trouncing of Oregon in opening round action on Wednesday. The win was the teams fourth in the last five games, with only a loss to Pac-10 champion Washington since February 19th.

The Bruins hold a 94-14 edge in the all-time series with Washington State, but the two schools split a pair of games during the regular season, each team winning on the road.

The winner of this game will take on either USC or California in the semifinal round on Friday.

The Cougars certainly took advantage of the horrific play by Oregon in the opening round, holding the Ducks to a mere 26 percent shooting from the floor, in a 22-point rout. Washington State played lights out at the offensive end of the floor as well as the defensive end, connecting on a sizzling 58.1 percent of its own shots, despite going 0-of-6 from behind the arc. Center Aron Baynes led the way down low, finishing with 20 points and eight rebounds. Caleb Forest tallied 14 points in support, while DeAngelo Casto came off the bench to chip in 10. It was a solid effort from the team, considering that leading scorer Taylor Rochestie managed just four points in 35 minutes of work. Coming into the tournament, Rochestie was averaging a solid 13.6 ppg, followed by Klay Thompson (13.1 ppg) and Baynes (12.0 ppg). Still, this is a defensive- minded team first and foremost, coming into this tournament, allowing a meager 55.2 ppg.

UCLA has proved to be one of the most balanced teams in the league this year, getting the job done at both ends of the court. The offense is strong at 77.1 ppg, thanks to a sterling 50.6 percent shooting. The defense has also been solid, with the Bruins limiting the opposition to just 63.5 ppg, while holding a +4.1 rebounding margin. The team possesses a trio of quality performers at the offensive end, starting with court-general Darren Collison. The veteran guard is shooting over 53 percent on the season, including 42 percent from long range. The result is a team-high 14.8 ppg. He is also the primary distributor on the roster with 155 assists to date and paces the team in steals as well with 50. However, Collison is suffering from a bruised tailbone and could be limited in terms of his explosiveness in this game. Josh Shipp is a close second in the scoring column at 14.4 ppg and is also lethal from long range (.441). Alfred Aboya (10.1 ppg, 6.0 rpg) is the top option down low. Both players will need to step up if Collison is less than 100-percent.

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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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