Around College Basketball: Not exactly glory days

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/20/2009 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - This is a column for all of us beleaguered college basketball fans, who have watched our favorite teams suffer through miserable seasons.

For those of us who have absolutely no hope of anything more than first-round exits in conference tournaments. For those of us who think March Madness is defined as the act of wondering why you are wasting time watching such dreadful basketball.

My alma mater, Fresno State, has had its share of exciting moments through the years. I fondly remember the Boyd Grant era of the late 1970s and on into the 1980s, when this dynamic though down-to-earth coach turned a down-on-its luck program into a winner.

We went from a 7-20 record in 1976-77 to 21-6 in 1977-78 by leading the nation in defense, and were off and running toward a decade of success that included being ranked in the top 10 nationally and reaching the Sweet 16 before losing to Patrick Ewing at Georgetown in 1982. It included a magical run to an NIT title in 1983, beating Wake Forest and DePaul at Madison Square Garden, at a time where the NIT still meant something.

We witnessed three NCAA appearances and a pair of NIT trips in five years, and sent players such as Rod Higgins, Ron Anderson, Bernard Thompson and Pete Verhoeven to the NBA. There were wins over teams like Houston, with Akeem Olajuwon, and UNLV.

Selland Arena, the local municipal facility in downtown Fresno, was jam-packed nearly every night, and was one of the loudest basketball arenas in America.

Your hair would stand on end from the electricity in the air, and you didn't even bother to try having a conversation with the person sitting next to you for most of the game. The decibel levels exceeded some of the rock concerts I watched in the same venue.

There was a renaissance under one of our favorite alums, Jerry Tarkanian, in the late 1990s and a couple of more trips to the NCAAs with players like Chris Herren, Rafer Alston, Courtney Alexander, Tito Maddux and Melvin Ely.

Tarkanian and some of his players may have been lightning rods for controversy off the court, but on it, they generated enough excitement to spark the building of an on-campus arena, the sparkling 15,596-seat Save Mart Center.

This isn't one of those glory years.

The Bulldogs were playing on national television on Thursday night, a fact that I only discovered while watching one of my new hometown teams, Villanova, beat Rutgers, 82-72. That tells you what kind of a year it's been for your team, when you find out they have a game on national TV on accident.

That's what happens when your club is in last place in the Western Athletic Conference and has a 10-17 record. With at least six games remaining, Fresno State is poised to record the most losses in school history. And that is for a program that started playing basketball in 1921.

While I was watching from my couch in Hatboro, PA, I conversed by cellular phone with my best friend and fellow basketball agonizer, Jim, who was tuned in from a snow-bound cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

For over two hours, we watched our alma mater play just well enough to give us hope of a victory, though the obvious weaknesses of blocking out on defensive rebounds, poor free-throw shooting, brutal defensive lapses and turnovers left us with the bleak realization that a loss was inevitable.

Even against an almost equally bad Hawaii club, we knew this collection of underclassmen and transfers wasn't up to the task. They left us hanging until the final minute before losing, 73-69.

The Kool-Aid being fed the alumni is that this young team is gaining valuable experience that will reap dividends in the next couple of years. But you don't have to be a seasoned basketball fan to know that this squad is a long way from the Grant and Tarkanian days.

I know there are fans at other schools with proud traditions like San Francisco (9-17), Massachusetts (9-15), Georgia (10-16), Georgia Tech (10-15), Virginia (9-13), DePaul (8-18), Valparaiso (7-20), Loyola Marymount (2-25), Oregon (6-20) and Indiana (7-20) who are in as much pain as I am this season.

For all of them, and my alma mater as well, we can only hope that in the future, March Madness will see such teams return to their glory days.

Wlucky7 NCAA Basketball Betting News

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Horse Betting

(This is an update of a sportsbook for the May 4th issue of ESPN The Magazine).

The Kentucky Derby's post-position draw happened on Wednesday. And, as is always the case, shortly afterwards, a buzz raced around Churchill Downs. It was a low rumble at first, nothing that the squares in the mint julep crowd pick up right away. But by the time the sun set over the twin spires, the chatter was impossible to ignore. Everyone -- sharps, trainers, owners -- was talking about one thing: the wise guy horse, the pre-draw long shot us mopes didn't have on our radar until it was too late.

"You think you're hearing the scoop," says handicapper Lane Gold. "Then you get to the window, the odds are short, and you missed it."

Recognizing a wise-guy horse early is as hard as picking a Derby bonnet. That's because handicappers don't like hype (see ya, I Want Revenge). They want Thoroughbreds who look good losing prep races like the Santa Anita Derby. They eye horses who ate up the field after starting wide or made an easy transition from synthetic tracks to dirt. They look for ponies who showed muscle gain race to race and those who ran hard after several weeks' rest.

"A wise guy," says John Avello, a bookmaker at Wynn Las Vegas, "looks for a horse who can improve."

When I first wrote Horse Betting for The Mag, which I turned in a three weeks before Wednesday's draw, I predicted these three horses had wise guy potential:

CHOCOLATE CANDY (15-1 in mid-April, currently 20-1 according to Avello): His second-place finish at Santa Anita, following a seven-week layoff, proved two things: He can run after resting, and -- by losing a high-profile prep race -- he wouldn't be overhyped.

DESERT PARTY (15-1; 15-1): He was upset in the UAE Derby by a horse he had beaten twice. The public remembers his loss, but the wise guys his wins.

PIONEEROF THE NILE (8-1; 4-1): The big favorite at Santa Anita struggled to win, so he initially got less hype than Quality Road and I Want Revenge.

You may have noticed that the odds on Pioneerof the Nile have been cut in half, from 8-1 to 4-1. Which means the wise guys took a shine to him long before the post-position draw. But, to be honest, this is one of those years with four elite horses getting everyone's attention, squares and sharps alike.

"You're not gonna get a lot of chatter about a horse that isn't in that group, which includes Pioneer, I Want Revenge, Dunkirk and Friesan Fire," Avello told me Wednesday. "We don't have a group of horses behind those top four who look like real legit contenders."

Come Derby week, the final two elements in picking a wise guy horse are how he's working out and what gate he's coming out of.

(By the way, picking a Preakness favorite is a whole different bale of hay, partially based on how horses finish in the Derby. You can see my analysis of who has the best shot at Pimlico on Insider Sunday morning.)

Well, early in the week I Want Revenge, Pioneerof the Nile and Friesan Fire were working out better than anyone. Some thought Friesan Fire, currently 6-1, might have run too fast, burning a five-furlong run in :57 4/5. "When you are running that fast you have the sense that it took something out of him," says Gold. "The Derby is longer than any horse has run, and if they need that extra surge you worry they won't have it because they burned it in the workout."

But, Gold points out, Friesan Fire's trainer is Larry Jones, Two years ago his horse Hard Spun did a five-eighths workout in :57 3/5 and then went on to finish second, behind Street Sense, in the Derby. "Every trainer has different methods," says Gold. "And clearly he knows what he's doing."

Now, as for starting position, Gold says to remember this: Churchill Downs traditionally has 14 starting gates. For the Derby, it brings out auxiliary gates and between the original 14th gate and the new 15th gate, there is a little more space than there is between gates 1-14. "That 15 position will give you a precious second or two to sort out what's happening to your inside," says Gold. "Sixteen is also okay because you can follow the horse in front of you."

Dunkirk, one of the race favorites, is coming out of gate 15. In 16 is Baffert's Pioneerof the Nile. I Want Revenge drew 13, where Smarty Jones won from in 2004, and Friesan Fire picked the sixth position. "He doesn't have a lot of speed to the inside of him," says Gold. "So he will get a clear shot to be near the front."

All the jibber-jabber means this: Pioneerof the Nile has leapfrogged from 8-1 to being the second favorite, along with Dunkirk, behind I Want Revenge. Meanwhile, Friesan Fire, with a good trainer, a strong week of training and a decent post position, is still at 6-1. "By Saturday, it's possible he could go from fourth to the favorite," says Gold.

In other words, meet Friesan Fire, your 2009 wise guy horse.

"Now," says Avello, "it's time for action."

To visit this horse betting site go to MySportsbook.com for all your horse racing betting needs.