Butler hopes to continue winning ways in Motor City

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/27/2007 - Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 14th-ranked Butler Bulldogs continue to be the class of the Horizon League, and they hope to score yet another win in today's meeting with the Detroit Titans.

On Thursday, Butler once again showed its toughness by knocking off a solid Loyola-Chicago team on the road by a 70-66 final in overtime. The victory was the fourth in a row for the Bulldogs, who are a stellar 18-2 overall this season, including 6-1 against Horizon League foes.

With back-to-back wins, Detroit has managed to improve to 7-12 overall and 4-4 in conference. Like Butler, the Titans also recorded an overtime victory, as the 91-84 decision over Wisconsin-Milwukee featured the team's best offensive output of the season by a wide margin.

Butler holds a 33-27 edge in the all-time series with Detroit, and the teams will meet again next month.

A.J. Graves was the hero once again for Butler in the win over Loyola-Chicago just two days ago, as the standout guard nailed three shots from behind the arc in overtime. Graves finished with 26 points, and the fact that he missed two free throw attempts in the contest was surprising considering that he entered the contest as the nation's most efficient shooter from the charity stripe. Pete Campbell pitched in 12 points for the Bulldogs, who only committed seven turnovers in 45 minutes of action. Defensively, they limited Loyola to 34.3 percent shooting. All of the positives enabled the squad to overcome a 48-35 rebounding disadvantage. Graves is averaging 18.6 ppg this season and is undoubtedly a front-runner for Horizon League Player of the Year honors. Mike Green adds 13.4 ppg to the lineup for the Bulldogs, and Brandon Crone is contributing 10.6 ppg.

Prior to scoring 91 points on Thursday night, Detroit had been held to 66 or fewer points in nine consecutive outings and had not surpassed 73 points in any game. The Titans shot 50.8 percent from the floor against Wisconsin- Milwaukee, and they racked up 20 assists in the contest. A 41-22 rebounding advantage, including 17-9 on the offensive glass, certainly helped the team. Jon Goode scored a team-high 18 points off the bench to lead the way, and Ryvon Covile finished with 15 points and nine rebounds. Detroit also got 14 points apiece from Chris Hayes, Brandon Bell and Brandon Cotton. Cotton is the team's leading scorer through 19 games with 17.9 ppg, and he is netting an even more impressive 19.5 ppg against league foes. As for Covile, he is averaging 13.2 ppg and 11.3 rpg overall. The Titans are far from explosive at the offensive end, as they are only scoring 61.9 ppg this season.

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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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