Falcons face tall task in Mountain West Tourney tilt with Lobos

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/11/2010 - Las Vegas, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Less than 24 hours after picking up just their second win all-time in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, the Air Force Falcons are back on the hardwood of the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas as they clash with top-seeded and eighth-ranked New Mexico in the quarterfinals of the 11th annual event this afternoon.

The Falcons, who had just a single league win this season and are the ninth seed in the tourney, completely confused eighth-seeded Wyoming yesterday and came up with a stunning 59-40 win over the Cowboys. It was the fewest points allowed by the academy this season and by far the fewest points scored by the Pokes as well. The victory snapped a nine-game losing streak by Air Force, which began just after the squad's first and only MWC win, a 70-63 triumph over those same Cowboys at home back on January 30th.

As for the highly-touted Lobos, they are under the direction of Steve Alford who earned himself MWC Coach of the Year honors for the second year in a row as he guided the program to a spectacular 28-3 record and a 14-2 mark in league play after opening the MWC schedule with back-to-back losses. UNM is currently riding a 14-game win streak and a win today would not only set a new school record for wins in a single season, it would give the program its second-longest run in school history behind a 17-game streak set in 1967-68.

With respect to the all-time series between these two schools on the hardwood, the Lobos have won six straight over Air Force and now own a commanding 47-18 mark overall. However, the academy gave UNM a scare this season when it allowed the Lobos just a 59-56 win at home in The Pit, after Air Force rolled over at home a month earlier in a 73-50 decision.

The winner of this matchup heads to the semifinals on Friday to clash with the winner of the Colorado State/San Diego State battle.

The defense by the Falcons stunned Wyoming yesterday, holding the Pokes to a mere 21 points in the first half and an even weaker 19 points after the break. Wyoming finished the meeting shooting just 2-of-16 behind the three-point line, got off a total of only 33 field goal chances and sank a meager 8-of-19 at the charity stripe. Leading the way for Air Force were Grant Parker and Michael Lyons with 15 and 11 points, respectively, as the squad actually beat the Cowboys on the glass, 25-21. Parker continues to be the leading scorer for the Falcons with his 13.1 ppg, hitting 47.9 percent of his field goal attempts, while Evan Washington checks in with 10.2 ppg and combines with Parker to account for more than nine rebounds per game. Unfortunately for the academy, that still leaves the group with a rebounding deficit of nearly four boards per outing.

The Lobos, winners of this tournament back in 2005, have in their lineup the top player in the league in Darington Hobson. Not only was Hobson named the MWC Newcomer of the Year, the junior also picked up the award for MWC Player of the Year after leading the conference in rebounding with 10.1 per game and placing third in scoring (14.9 ppg) and third in assists (4.8 apg). One of the most well-rounded players to hit the MWC landscape in several years, Hobson was a beast in the final month and a half of the regular season with his 18.2 ppg, 11.0 rpg and 5.8 apg over the last nine outings. But the Lobos are so much more than just Hobson as they also get significant contributions from Roman Martinez (14.1 ppg, 6.3 rpg) who is a 42.9 percent shooter behind the three-point line, followed by Dairese Gary and Phillip McDonald with 12.4 and 10.9 ppg, respectively. Gary, also accounted for 123 assists to take some of the pressure off Hobson. Perhaps the most impressive part of the Lobos is that they had the same starting lineup for every single game this season.

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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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