No. 15 Creighton tops Bradley for 10th straight win

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/28/2012 - Omaha, NE (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Doug McDermott finished with a game-high 24 points and pulled down six rebounds as No. 15 Creighton topped Bradley, 73-59, on Saturday.

Gregory Echenique recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds and Josh Jones contributed 14 points and four assists for the Bluejays (20-2, 10-1 MVC), who extended their winning streak to 10 games.

Dyricus Simms-Edwards paced the Braves (6-17, 1-10) with 19 points and six rebounds, while Taylor Brown donated 16 points and seven rebounds in a losing effort. Bradley has lost four straight games.

Bradley jumped out to a quick 11-5 lead, capped by a Simms-Edwards three- pointer, but the Bluejays quickly responded with a 9-0 run to go ahead, 14-11 with under 12 minutes to play in the opening half.

A trey by Grant Gibbs with 4 1/2 minutes left in the opening 20 minutes put Creighton up 29-19 and a layup by Echenique gave the Bluejays their largest lead of the half at 33-21 with 2:29 left.

Bradley fought back though, closing out the opening half with a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to 33-28 at the break.

Creighton opened the second half with an 11-4 push, capped by a Jones trey, to open up a 44-32 lead with 14:38 left in regulation.

The Braves again fought back with a 13-4 run to cut the deficit to three with 10 minutes left, but Creighton answered with a quick 8-0 burst to go ahead 56-45 with 8:21 to play.

The Bluejays led by double-digits the rest of the way, and a free throw by Gibbs with 1:35 left put them up 69-54 -- their largest margin of the game -- en route to the easy win.

Game Notes

Creighton owns a narrow 44-41 lead in the all-time series with Bradley, and the Bluejays topped the Braves in the first meeting this season, 92-83, on January 7...Bradley fell to 0-12 this season when allowing at least 70 points...Creighton shot 54 percent from the floor and 8-of-20 from three-point range, while Bradley shot 39 percent from the field and 6-of-17 from beyond the arc...The Bluejays have now won 20 or more games for the 13th time in the last 14 seasons.

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.

Betting the NFL preseason

Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."

When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. 

The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.

The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.

“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”

The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.

“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”

The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.

“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”

Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.

“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."

So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?

“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.

Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.

Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.

Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.

“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.

Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.

The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.

“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.

Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.