No. 25 Xavier downs St. Bonaventure to gain share of A-10 title

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/06/2010 - Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jordan Crawford scored 22 points to lead 25th-ranked Xavier to a 93-72 win over St. Bonaventure in the regular-season finale for both teams at Cintas Center.

Jamel McLean poured in 15 points for the Musketeers (23-7, 14-2 Atlantic 10), who finished with the same record as Temple and captured a share of the league title for a fourth straight year but will enter the upcoming conference tournament as the No. 2 seed due to the Owls holding the tiebreaker.

Jason Love added 14 points, Dante Jackson had 11 points and Terrell Holloway contributed nine points and 10 assists in the victory.

"Making history - there's nothing like it," Love said. "I can't put into words how it feels to win a fourth straight conference title."

Andrew Nicholson led the way with 21 points for the Bonnies (14-15, 7-9), who saw their four-game win streak halted. Chris Matthews netted 14 points while Jonathan Hall posted 11 points and eight rebounds in the loss.

"We had to play an A-plus game and they had to play a C game if we were going to win," St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said.

Xavier scored 16 of the game's first 20 points, with a Mark Lyons bucket from in close capping the early surge with 13:45 to play in the first half.

From that point, Xavier went on a 10-2 run and opened an even bigger advantage. A three-point play by McLean made it 19-6 then Lyons added a layup before consecutive scoring possessions -- the first a jumper by Holloway and the second a three-pointer by Jackson -- gave the hosts a commanding 26-6 lead near the midpoint of the half.

A basket by Hall with 5:46 to go brought the Bonnies within 32-20, and several minutes later, a three-pointer by Matthews cut the SBU deficit even further, to 38-30.

Holloway's jumper gave the Musketeers a 44-32 lead at the break.

In the second half, the hosts were simply too much. Crawford's layup over five minutes into the frame put Xavier ahead by 18, 58-40, before a fastbreak jam by Kenny Frease pushed the lead to 22 points.

Nicholson's dunk with 6:50 on the clock drew the Bonnies within 15, 72-57, but a triple by Crawford over a minute later was the start of six straight points that eventually put Xavier back on top by 20 and the remaining minutes were dedicated to honoring the seniors.

Game Notes

This marked Xavier's 24th straight home win, which is good for the third longest home win streak in the nation...Xavier leads the all-time series, 22-15...The Musketeers have won seven straight games and 11 of their last 12 overall...Xavier has now also captured 32 consecutive home conference contests...SBU has dropped nine straight to Xavier, which won the battle on the glass, 38-30.

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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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