Red-hot Badgers play host to Boilermakers

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/17/2007 - Madison, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Winners of 13 straight games, the second- ranked Wisconsin Badgers play host to the Purdue Boilermakers this evening in Big Ten action from the Kohl Center in Madison.

Bo Ryan's squad has been a picture of consistency thus far, as a two-point loss to Missouri State back on November 24th is the only blemish on Wisconsin's stellar record (17-1). More recently, the team moved to 3-0 in Big Ten play with Saturday's 56-50 win at Northwestern.

Purdue should not be overlooked by anyone in the conference, as the team has a solid 13-5 record thus far. Matt Painter is in his second season at the helm in West Lafayette and has these Boilermakers believing in themselves. Purdue evened its conference record at 2-2 with a 67-53 win over Michigan this past weekend. The victory also gave the team its 11th victory at home without a defeat.

This is the 160th meeting between these two schools, with Purdue holding a 98-61 advantage all-time. UW has won the last seven meetings in Madison. This is the only regular season meeting between these two teams this season.

The Boilermakers are not an offensive juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination, as the team is averaging a modest 73.7 ppg, despite shooting a respectable .475 from the floor. What the team does have though, is one of the conference's top performers in senior forward Carl Landry. The 6-7 veteran is shooting a scorching .631 from the floor this year and leads the Boilermakers in both scoring (19.6 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg). David Teague provides perimeter support at 12.5 ppg and is the team's top long-range threat, delivering on 40 percent of his three-point attempts (42-of-105). It was the combination of Landry and Teague that led the team to victory over the Wolverines last time out. Landry finished with a game-high 22 points, hitting 9-of-14 from the floor. Teague was on his game as well, hitting 8-of-10 shots, including 4-of-5 from behind the arc, to finish with 21 points. The Boilermakers shot .565 from the floor in the game and forced Michigan into 17 turnovers.

It was a strong defensive effort that led to Wisconsin's win at Northwestern over the weekend. The Badgers held the Wildcats to just .385 shooting, including .222 from long range (4-of-18). It was a good thing, because UW was off its offensive game, shooting just .436 from the field, including .167 from behind the arc (2-of-12). The team only attempted 39 shots overall, the lowest total this season. All-American candidate Alando Tucker led the way with 17 points and eight rebounds. Kammron Taylor was the only Badger to join Tucker in double digits, chipping in 12, despite hitting just 3-of-12 shots from the floor. It has been a strong defensive effort that has fueled Wisconsin's success thus far. The team is limiting foes to a meager 57.4 ppg this year, holing them under 40 percent shooting from the field (.391). Tucker is one of the Big Ten's stars. He is shooting .493 on the year, and is good for almost 20 points per game (19.8). Taylor (13.2 ppg) is the resident sniper, hitting over 46 percent from three-point range (32-of-69). Brian Butch is hitting half of his shots on the year and is closing in on double digits (9.9 ppg), while leading the way on the glass (6.4 rpg).

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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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