Red-hot Badgers play host to Boilermakers

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/17/2007 - Madison, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Winners of 13 straight games, the second- ranked Wisconsin Badgers play host to the Purdue Boilermakers this evening in Big Ten action from the Kohl Center in Madison.

Bo Ryan's squad has been a picture of consistency thus far, as a two-point loss to Missouri State back on November 24th is the only blemish on Wisconsin's stellar record (17-1). More recently, the team moved to 3-0 in Big Ten play with Saturday's 56-50 win at Northwestern.

Purdue should not be overlooked by anyone in the conference, as the team has a solid 13-5 record thus far. Matt Painter is in his second season at the helm in West Lafayette and has these Boilermakers believing in themselves. Purdue evened its conference record at 2-2 with a 67-53 win over Michigan this past weekend. The victory also gave the team its 11th victory at home without a defeat.

This is the 160th meeting between these two schools, with Purdue holding a 98-61 advantage all-time. UW has won the last seven meetings in Madison. This is the only regular season meeting between these two teams this season.

The Boilermakers are not an offensive juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination, as the team is averaging a modest 73.7 ppg, despite shooting a respectable .475 from the floor. What the team does have though, is one of the conference's top performers in senior forward Carl Landry. The 6-7 veteran is shooting a scorching .631 from the floor this year and leads the Boilermakers in both scoring (19.6 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg). David Teague provides perimeter support at 12.5 ppg and is the team's top long-range threat, delivering on 40 percent of his three-point attempts (42-of-105). It was the combination of Landry and Teague that led the team to victory over the Wolverines last time out. Landry finished with a game-high 22 points, hitting 9-of-14 from the floor. Teague was on his game as well, hitting 8-of-10 shots, including 4-of-5 from behind the arc, to finish with 21 points. The Boilermakers shot .565 from the floor in the game and forced Michigan into 17 turnovers.

It was a strong defensive effort that led to Wisconsin's win at Northwestern over the weekend. The Badgers held the Wildcats to just .385 shooting, including .222 from long range (4-of-18). It was a good thing, because UW was off its offensive game, shooting just .436 from the field, including .167 from behind the arc (2-of-12). The team only attempted 39 shots overall, the lowest total this season. All-American candidate Alando Tucker led the way with 17 points and eight rebounds. Kammron Taylor was the only Badger to join Tucker in double digits, chipping in 12, despite hitting just 3-of-12 shots from the floor. It has been a strong defensive effort that has fueled Wisconsin's success thus far. The team is limiting foes to a meager 57.4 ppg this year, holing them under 40 percent shooting from the field (.391). Tucker is one of the Big Ten's stars. He is shooting .493 on the year, and is good for almost 20 points per game (19.8). Taylor (13.2 ppg) is the resident sniper, hitting over 46 percent from three-point range (32-of-69). Brian Butch is hitting half of his shots on the year and is closing in on double digits (9.9 ppg), while leading the way on the glass (6.4 rpg).

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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