Booker boosts Clemson over Virginia

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/03/2009 - Clemson, SC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trevor Booker scored 13 points and grabbed 15 rebounds as 18th-ranked Clemson dominated Virginia, 75-57, during senior night at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Terrence Oglesby finished 10-of-10 from the foul line on his way to 18 points for the Tigers (23-6, 9-6 ACC), who snapped a two-game skid and avenged an 85-81 defeat in overtime to the Cavaliers on February 15.

With the victory, Clemson secured back-to-back winning seasons in ACC play for the first time since 1965-66 and 1966-67. The Tigers also improved their all- time senior night record to 69-29.

This was the final home game for Clemson seniors K.C. Rivers, Raymond Sykes and Jesse Yanutola. The seniors improved their record to 91-40, which is a school record for wins by a senior class. Rivers has played in all 91 victories and is the winningest player in Clemson history overall and in ACC play.

Sykes ended with 14 points and five boards. Rivers tallied just two points, while Yanutola failed to score.

Virginia (9-17, 3-12) was paced by Calvin Baker, who finished with 18 points. Mike Scott added 13 points and eight rebounds for the Cavaliers, who have lost four consecutive outings. Jeff Jones poured in 11 points in defeat.

After Virginia hung tough in the first half, the Tigers took control of the contest in the final frame. Following a Baker jumper and a Sykes free throw to start the second half, Clemson put together a 17-2 run to break open the game. Booker's slam capped off the flurry to put the Tigers ahead 50-35 with over 12 minutes remaining.

The Cavaliers never got closer than 14 points the remainder of the way. Clemson outscored Virginia 43-26 in the final 20 minutes.

Trailing 13-9 over seven minutes into the game, Clemson rattled off 13 unanswered points to go ahead by nine, 22-13. Oglesby, who had seven points during the run, made a pair of foul shots to culminate the surge with just over nine minutes until halftime.

The Cavaliers responded with 10 consecutive points to regain the lead. Jones' jumper topped off the spurt with about 5 1/2 minutes left. The remainder of the half was a back-and-forth affair. The Tigers took a 32-31 edge into the locker room. Baker led all scorers at the break with 12 points.

Game Notes

Clemson shot 50 percent from the field, while Virginia hit just 40.8 percent of its shots...The Tigers grabbed 36 rebounds, compared to 27 for the Cavaliers...Virginia holds a 65-50 advantage in the all-time series.

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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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