Red Storm seek upset in Steel City

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/27/2007 - Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. John's Red Storm are coming off a big-time win over a league opponent, and they will attempt to score a Big East upset on the road today against the ninth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers.

St. John's has recorded back-to-back wins to move to 12-8 overall and 3-4 in league play. After beating Syracuse last weekend, the Red Storm came up with a thrilling 71-68 triumph over nationally-ranked Notre Dame on Tuesday. Still, it has to be mentioned that the squad is just 1-3 in true road games.

Pittsburgh has won eight of its last nine games to move to 18-3 overall and 6-1 in conference action. The Panthers recorded a 67-51 decision over Cincinnati on Wednesday, and of the three losses the team has suffered this season, two have come in overtime. While St. John's has struggled on the road, Pitt is a stellar 12-1 at home.

St. John's owns a 33-16 lead in the all-time series with Pittsburgh, and the Red Storm won last season's meeting by a 55-50 final.

St. John's got a tremendous effort from Lamont Hamilton in the win over Notre Dame on Tuesday, as he scored 23 points and pulled down 12 rebounds to lead all players in both categories. Teammate Eugene Lawrence finished with 13 points and seven assists, but he did commit 10 of the team's 19 turnovers. The third and final double-digit scorer in the victory was Larry Wright, as he finished with 11 points. The Red Storm limited the Fighting Irish to 35.5 percent shooting from the floor, and the strong defense was clearly the key to the team's success. Hamilton is averaging 13.5 ppg and 7.2 rpg this season, and Avery Patterson checks in with 11.9 ppg. As for Anthony Mason, he is contributing 11.0 ppg. Lawrence has dished out 105 assists and also leads the club with 36 steals.

Pittsburgh is scoring 74.2 ppg this season on 49.7 percent shooting from the floor, including 40.8 percent from three-point range. Defensively, the Panthers are limiting foes to 62.0 ppg on 40.2 percent shooting while outrebounding team by six boards per outing. Aaron Gray continues to lead Pitt with 14.8 ppg and 10.2 rpg, and he has blocked 34 shots as well while shooting 57.9 percent from the field. Mike Cook is a steady contributor who adds 11.4 ppg to the lineup, and Antonio Graves checks in with 10.3 ppg. The Panthers have featured the same starting lineup in all 21 games, an obvious key to their success. Levance Fields scored 18 points to lead Pitt in the recent win over Cincinnati, while Ronald Ramon and Sam Young tallied 10 points each. The Panthers connected on 60.5 percent of their field goal attempts in that contest, including a 12-of-19 showing from three-point range.

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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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