Badgers cruise past Wolverines for 16th straight victory

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/25/2007 - Madison, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alando Tucker and Brian Butch scored 16 points each, and No. 2 Wisconsin cruised past the Michigan Wolverines, 71-58, at Kohl Center.

Kammron Taylor and Marcus Landry added eight points apiece for Wisconsin (20-1, 6-0 Big 10), which won its 16th straight game. The streak is the longest in the nation, and the 20-1 start ties the best start in school history for the Badgers. Wisconsin has won its first six Big 10 games for the first time since the 1913-1914 season.

Courtney Sims scored 16 points for Michigan (16-5, 4-2), which had won back- to-back games, and four of five entering the contest. Lester Abram scored 10 points for the Wolverines, who fell in a matchup between the top two teams in the Big 10.

Michigan scored the game's first nine points, but the Badgers answered with a 9-2 run, tying the game at 11-11 on a layup by Joe Krabbenhoft with 11:41 left in the first half. Wisconsin pulled ahead on the strength of a 9-0 run late in the first half, and led 33-26 at the intermission.

Wisconsin blew the Wolverines off the court in the second half, stretching its lead out to 24 points with just under eight minutes left. A Ron Coleman jumper pulled Michigan to within 39-30 just under three minutes into the second half, but Wisconsin went on a 24-9 stretch, capped by Tucker's jumper that put the Badgers up 63-39 with 7:58 left.

Wisconsin led 71-50 after a Tucker layup with 3:06 left, but Michigan closed the game with eight straight points to produce the final score.

Game Notes

Wisconsin shot 54 percent from the field, compared to a 45 percent performance by Michigan...19 Michigan turnovers led to 24 Wisconsin points...Each team had 30 rebounds in the contest.

Gamblersville NCAA Basketball Betting News

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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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