Sixth-ranked Bears battle Cowboys in Big 12 affair

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/04/2012 - Stillwater, OK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The sixth-ranked Baylor Bears will attempt to stay within striking distance in the Big 12 Conference, as they invade Stillwater this afternoon for a conference matchup with the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Gallagher-Iba Arena.

The Bears have won three straight games since back-to-back losses to Kansas and Missouri and most recently moved to 7-2 in conference play with a hard- fought 63-60 road win at Texas A&M on Wednesday.

The Cowboys are also coming off a road win, posting an 80-63 win at Texas Tech on Tuesday. With the victory, OSU pulled to an even 11-11 on the season and within one game of .500 in-conference (4-5).

Baylor has won six of the last 10 meetings and is seeking the regular-season sweep after routing the Cowboys in Waco on January 14th, 106-65. Still, Oklahoma State holds a sizable 51-17 lead in the series overall, including a 24-3 mark in Stillwater.

The Bears have shown the ability to win games at either end of the floor and are enjoying a +14.2 scoring margin as a result. The team possesses plenty of scoring punch at 77.4 ppg on a healthy .490 shooting, including .407 from three-point range. Baylor currently has four players averaging double figures. Perry Jones III paces the team in both scoring (14.7 ppg) and rebounding (7.8 rpg). Fellow forwards Quincy Miller (12.6 ppg) and Quincy Acy (12.5 ppg, 6.8 rpg) give the team other options up front. Pierre Jackson has been both a potent scorer (12.6 ppg) and deft distributor (6.0 apg). Brady Heslip is just under double digits (9.7 ppg) getting a big portion of that from behind the arc (team-high 57 three-pointers).

The Bears struggled to find their range in the three-point win over Texas A&M, converting just .397 from the floor, including a .333 mark from behind the arc. Jones led the way with 15 points. Jackson tacked on 14 points in the win, while Acy chipped in with 11 points. Miller just missed a double-double, finishing with nine points and 11 rebounds.

OSU ended a brutal 14-game conference losing streak with a big win over Texas Tech this week. Markel Brown played a huge role in the win, erupting for a career-high 30 points, going 7-of-12 from the floor and a perfect 13-of-13 from the free-throw line. Le'Bryan Nash added 16 points to the cause, while Keiton Page finished with 10 points. Texas Tech hit 50 percent of its shots in the game, but the Cowboys were able to counter by going a whopping 33-of-35 from the charity stripe in the game.

Offensive proficiency hasn't been a strength for Oklahoma State this year. The Cowboys are averaging a modest 67.0 ppg, shooting a mere .418 from the floor overall. In addition, the team suffers from a -3.6 rebounding margin. Page leads the way at the offensive end at 14.2 ppg, thanks in large part to his 53 made three-pointers. Nash is just a freshman, but has shown flashes of brilliant play and comes into this contest averaging 13.3 ppg. Brown rounds out the top scorers on the roster at 10.0 ppg.

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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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