Washington upends No. 7 Oregon

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/26/2007 - Seattle, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Justin Dentmon scored 24 points and dished out six assists as Washington toppled seventh-ranked Oregon, 89-77, at Bank of America Arena.

Ryan Appleby donated 16 points while Spencer Hawes ended with 15 for the Huskies (12-7, 2-6 Pac-10), who snapped a three-game skid. Jon Brockman totaled 14 points and eight rebounds in victory.

Bryce Taylor paced his team with 19 points and Chamberlain Oguchi scored 15 for Oregon (18-2, 6-2), which had a five-game winning streak snapped. A win in this contest would have given Oregon its best start in team history.

Dentmon got 15 of his points before the break and also delved out four assists to help give Washington a 51-40 halftime edge. The big statistic over the first 20 minutes was points off turnovers, as the Huskies outdueled the Ducks 15-4 in that category.

Oregon, though, put up a fight in the second stanza. The road team came out of the locker room and netted the first seven points to pull within four.

The Ducks cut the deficit to two, 59-57, on a Tajuan Porter lay-in, then used back-to-back threes by Malik Hairston and Oguchi to claim a two-point lead with 14:25 on the clock.

Washington, though, broke off a 13-4 run in the latter stages of the half to claim an 83-73 advantage. Dentmon had five points in the spurt, including a jumper that pushed the lead to double-digits with about three minutes left.

Oregon never seriously threatened the rest of the way.

Game Notes

Washington improved to 12-1 at home...The Huskies lead the all-time series, 179-100...Washington has won the last six against Oregon at home.

Wwwsingaporeair NCAA Basketball Betting News

<< Sun Devils roar past Cal
Tempe, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jill Noe poured in a season-best 19 points and added seven rebounds to pace 10th-ranked Arizona State past No. 20 California, 66-54, at Wells Fargo Arena. Emily Westerberg scored 15 points and Briann January

<< Sessions, Nevada rout Louisiana Tech
Reno, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ramon Sessions dropped in 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting to guide No. 18 Nevada past Louisiana Tech, 84-67, at Lawlor Events Center. Sessions also had seven rebounds and six assists while Nick Fazekas scored

<< No. 9 Stanford downs Arizona
Tucson, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brooke Smith scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as ninth-ranked Stanford held on to beat Arizona, 86-76, to remain perfect in the Pac-10 standings. Candice Wiggins and Jayne Appel each scored 18

<< UCLA tops Cal
Berkeley, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Arron Afflalo scored 25 points to lead the third-ranked UCLA Bruins past the California Golden Bears, 62-46, at Haas Pavilion. Afflalo made 7-of-13 shots from the floor and was a perfect 9-for-9 fro

<< Cubs release Rusch
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Cubs released pitcher Glendon Rusch on Thursday after a blood clot in his left lung cut short his 2006 season. The left-hander, 32, was 3-8 with a 7.46 earned run average in 25 gam

Mobley's late three lifts Clippers over Nets >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Cuttino Mobley hit a three with .6 seconds to play, as the Los Angeles Clippers bested the New Jersey Nets, 102-101, at the Staples Center. Elton Brand and Corey Maggette each netted 18 while Mobley f

Stanford upsets USC >>
Stanford, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brook Lopez easily had the best game of his young career, recording a triple-double with 18 points, 11 rebounds and a school-record 12 blocks to lead Stanford to a 65-50 upset of 25th-ranked USC. Lawre

Cougars drop Beavers >>
Pullman, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Robbie Cowgill scored 18 points and pulled down 11 rebounds as 20th-ranked Washington State defeated Pac-10 foe Oregon State, 70-55. Kyle Weaver scored 12 points and Ivory Clark chipped in with 11

Gonzalez blasts Haas to reach Aussie Open final >>
Melbourne, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fernando Gonzalez earned his first trip to a Grand Slam final with a straight-set victory over Tommy Haas on Friday in the semifinals of the Australian Open. The 10th-seeded Gonzalez rolle

Black/Huber capture Aussie Open doubles crown >>
Melbourne, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The third-ranked women's doubles team of Cara Black from Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of South Africa bested the Chinese Taipei team of Yung-Jan Chan and Chia-Jung Chuang, 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-1 to win

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.