Aggies meet Cowboys in Stillwater

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/21/2007 - Stillwater, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The eighth-ranked Texas A&M Aggies have made the trip to Stillwater for a Big 12 Conference clash with the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

Texas A&M has won six of its last seven games to move to 22-4 overall and 10-2 in conference action, as the club continues to battle Kansas for league supremacy. The Aggies were last in action on Saturday when they beat Oklahoma in Norman by a 56-49 final. At 6-2 this season in true road games, don't expect A&M to be intimidated this evening.

At one point, Oklahoma State appeared to be one of the nation's best teams, but the squad is now fighting for NCAA Tournament consideration with a 5-6 Big 12 record. The Cowboys have lost two straight games and four of their last five, including a 75-64 setback to Missouri on Saturday.

Texas A&M cruised to a 67-49 victory over Oklahoma State back on January 20th, overshadowing the fact that the Cowboys own a 26-10 advantage in the all-time series between the teams.

Joseph Jones and Acie Law led the way for Texas A&M in the victory over Oklahoma on Saturday, as both standouts scored 21 points. Jones led the team with nine rebounds, while Law dished out seven assists against only two turnovers. Strong defense was key to the victory for the Aggies, as they held the Sooners to 34 percent shooting from the field. A 13-6 edge in points from the foul line also helped the cause. Law is scoring 17.0 ppg this season on 51 percent shooting from the floor, including 44.4 percent accuracy from three-point range. He has also handed out 143 assists with 70 turnovers and leads the team with 35 steals as well. Jones checks in with 13.5 ppg and 6.5 rpg, while Josh Carter is scoring 12.1 ppg on the strength of his staggering 51.1 percent accuracy from behind the arc. Antanas Kavaliauskas is also netting 12.1 ppg, and he is grabbing 6.2 rpg. The Aggies are netting 75.3 ppg on 50 percent shooting from the field, and they are holding foes to 56.5 ppg on 36.3 percent efficiency.

Mario Boggan continues to pace Oklahoma State with 20.8 ppg and 7.9 rpg, and he is one of the elite players in the Big 12 Conference. The top backcourt performer for the Cowboys is JamesOn Curry, as he supplies 18.1 ppg to go along with his 94 assists. The biggest problem for the Cowboys is that they are allowing 77.5 ppg in conference play. On Saturday, they permitted Missouri to shoot 50 percent from the floor, including a 10-of-18 effort from three-point range. Unfortunately, Oklahoma State was only able to connect on 40.8 percent of its own field goal attempts, including a 2- of-10 showing from behind the arc. If not for a 22-9 advantage in points from the foul line, the final score would have been even more lopsided. Curry and Boggan scored 16 points apiece in defeat.

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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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