2010 West Coast Conference Tournament Preview

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/03/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - For the 10th year in a row, the Gonzaga Bulldogs won the West Coast Conference regular-season title, as they finished 12-2 within the league. The Bulldogs are out to repeat in this tournament after winning the 2009 event, which was held at a neutral site for the first time ever. Orleans Arena in Las Vegas will once again serve as host to the 24th-annual WCC Tournament, an eight-team event that gets underway on Friday.

The Saint Mary's Gaels ended up 11-3 and earned the second seed, while the University of Portland Pilots are locked in as the third seed courtesy of their 10-4 league mark. San Francisco and Loyola Marymount both finished 7-7, with the Dons grabbing the fourth seed and the Lions the fifth. Santa Clara, San Diego and Pepperdine all had 3-11 marks and the Toreros ended up as the sixth seed, the Broncos seventh and the Waves at eight. The winner of this event earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

The WCC Tournament gets started on Friday with the fifth-seeded Loyola Marymount Lions facing the eighth-seeded Pepperdine Waves. The Lions got healthy and played well down the stretch, winning five of their last seven games, including an upset of Gonzaga. The team's 16 overall wins are its most since capturing 18 in 1995-96. Loyola has won this event three times, with the last coming in 1990. As for the Waves, they started conference play with three straight wins before losing their last 11 contests. Pepperdine however, does own a 27-19 all-time mark in this event and that includes three titles.

The first round will conclude on Friday with sixth-seeded San Diego clashing with seventh-seeded Santa Clara. The Toreros are the only team, aside from Gonzaga, to win this event in the last 11 years, capturing titles in 2003 and 2008. San Diego ended a six-game slide with a win over Pepperdine in its finale and split two meetings with Santa Clara. Speaking of the Broncos, they carry a three-game losing skid into the postseason. Santa Clara owns a 24-21 record in this tourney and won its last title in 1993.

The quarterfinals will begin on Saturday and fourth-seeded San Francisco will await the winner of the Loyola Marymount/Pepperdine matchup. The Dons tied Loyola Marymount at 7-7, but swept the Lions during the regular season, giving them the fourth seed and a first-round bye. San Francisco, which knocked off Gonzaga in late January, is in search of its first tourney title since 1998.

In the second quarterfinal round game, the third-seeded Pilots will tussle with the survivor of the San Diego/Santa Clara pairing. Portland tied the school record of 10 WCC victories set during the 1994-95 season, as it won five of its last six bouts. The Pilots, who earned their first national ranking in 50 years earlier on in the campaign, are just 8-21 all-time in this event.

The top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs will make their much anticipated debut when they take the floor in the first game of the semifinal round on Sunday. Gonzaga has won 12 of the past 13 WCC regular-season titles, including the last 10. The Bulldogs are now tied with UNLV (1983-92 Big West) and Connecticut (1951-60 Yankee Conference) for the second-longest conference regular season title winning streak in NCAA history. Gonzaga has won this tourney a record 10 times and they are 35-13 all-time in the event. The Bulldogs have made 12 straight championship game appearances, winning the title nine of those times, including an 83-58 trouncing of Saint Mary's last year.

The second-seeded Gaels earned a bye into the semifinals and will need just one win to reach their second straight title game. Despite three championship game appearances in the last six years, the Gaels have won just one title and that came in 1997. The team is paced by Omar Samhan, the leading scorer (21.5 ppg) and rebounder (11.1 rpg) in the conference.

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Betting the NFL preseason

Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."

When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. 

The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.

The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.

“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”

The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.

“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”

The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.

“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”

Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.

“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."

So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?

“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.

Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.

Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.

Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.

“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.

Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.

The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.

“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.

Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.

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