Terps

Wow, what a game yesterday. I guess I picked the right time to watch my first college basketball game of the year. Some comments from the game.

1. Vazquez and Hayes- Both were terrible. I don't know how Lee can say that Vazquez was one of the reasons why we won the game. From watching on TV, he was terrible. Both Hayes and Vazquez combined for 11 turnovers, and they were terrible turnovers. They both looked like Vinny Testiverde when trying to dump the ball down low. Ugh. And Vazquez just running down the lane out of control was pissing me off to no end. I'm not too sure if it is a good thing or bad thing that they are just freshman.

2. Three point defense- Well its nice to see that some things never change. How do you not guard Miller? He had two wide open 3-pointers during the first half. They did clamp down in the second half which was nice.

3. Transition defense- Not too sure if this was a reflection of how good UNC was at this or how bad UM was on defense, but there sure seemed to be a lot of really easy baskets for UNC. I'm still confused on how we pulled this game out.

4. On the bright side, I have never seen a Maryland team rebound like this. Gist, Ibekwe, and Osby were outstanding. The effort on the boards was tremendous. 46-33 rebound advantage.

5. Free throws- WOW!!!! We actually made our free throws when they counted. Once again I don't remember seeing this before. Its the small things that won this game.

6. Osby- Who the hell is this guy? I love him!!! Yes he is a little goofy, but he really took Hansborough out of his game in the first half and had some huge offensive rebounds.

7. I had given up on the Terps with about 8-7 minutes left and switched to the NASCAR race, and switched back and saw that the Terps were within 3 points. Thank God I tivo'd the game, so I really didn't miss anything. What a great comeback and overall win!!! Watch for the letdown game though. Terps talking like they are an automatic bid for March Madness, traveling to Duke who is pumped up to avenge their loss to the Terps early on? This could be a really bad game for the Terps.

Crisis of Confidence & Strategy

I've been thinking about the topic of this post for a while now....it's a subject near and dear to my heart concerning Vegas and betting strategies. Would love to have the opinions of the group out there.

There are strategies out there for every casino game in order to maximize your chance of winning (or, more correctly, to minimize your losses). You don't bet on the horn in Craps (hello, drunk Eric, are you listening?). You follow the "card" for blackjack (and if you don't have the card, quickly text Leland).

But what is the optimum strategy for betting sports?

My original strategy is this:
a) You need to pick right more than 52.4% of the time in order to be a long-term winner
b) If you feel that you can, then by all means pick as many games as possible - if a) is true, then you will be a winner.

And so, I'm getting this reputation, right? I go to the window with $500 and come back with a stack of betting slips thicker than a William Faulkner novel.

But is that truly the right thing to do to maximize my winnings for the NCAA tournament?

I've been in search of a book out there that outlines the best strategies for a sportsbook. To my surprise, there is not much out there! There's 500 books on poker, 100 on blackjack, 50 on craps - but none at all specifically talking about sports betting strategies.

I've come across tow general gambling books with chapters on sports betting - and they both say the same thing....

1) Don't bet the whole board, but find the few (emphasis on FEW) games where you feel there is real value
2) Shoot your gun at those. It is much easier to go 3-1 on games you believe in than to go 13-11 across the board - and you are opening yourself up to the vig on that 13-11 scenario.

And I have to say, this makes sense.

Although I have proven (ahem! beating my chest proudly!) that I can beat the spread in the NFL 3 years in a row (each year, over 200 decisions/year over the 52.4% mark) - that doesn't mean squat in betting the NCAA Basketball tournament.

So - I think I will change my strategy this year - instead of having 15-17 bets on the 16 games each day on Thu/Fri, I will try to limit myself to 6-8 best value bets each day. This will allow me to increase my bet for each game...and therefore trying to maximize profits.

But this is MUCH easier said (for me ) than done.

What's the point on being in a sportsbook on NCAA tournament weekend when you don't have any action - however small - on each game? I usually make some "A", "B", and "C" picks for each day - usually encompassing all the games - and the total of my picks are close to the amount of games each day. Plus we have the random NIT games, women's games......

but I know realize that I will have to resist that temptation if I want to win money.

The main question that I keep coming back to is:

"Are you going to Vegas in order to have fun, or are you going to win money? The answer to that question determines your strategy."

And you know what? Honestly, I don't know how to answer that question in regard to the book.

So - assuming I am there wanting to win money, I am planning to change my strategy this year. I will bet a total of ~20 games or so all weekend (7 on Thu, 7 on Fri, 3 on Sat & Sun, for example). I fire the betting gun at those games and see what happens.

(On an aside - I've been thinking about the amount for each bet. Given a sports bankroll of $X, what should the bet on each game be in order to minimize the change that the bank will go to $0 after the 20 bets ----- like "Black Friday" last year, when I went 5-15. If I go 5-15 again - which is about a 4% chance, a risk I can accept - what is the bet on each game given a bank roll of $Y?)

So - I'll make 20 big bets, and the rest I may do some small parlays on. But you know that will drive me crazy when I go 6-14 on the big bets, and do well on the small bets..... that will kill me.

I'm practicing now - just picking a few games each day. I went 2-1 yesterday; I have 5 (and only 5! for today:
Lousiville PK
Loy-MD -2
Manhattan -9
Wisconsin +4
Arizona -5

Let's see what happens.

Thoughts on the new strategy? I really am interested to hear others' thoughts.

WGC Challenge - Third Round

OK, here is the challenge. You have $100. How would you bet given these odds for tomorrow's WGC matches?

Post in the comments.....



WGC Matchup
Time
Matchup
1:10 p.m.
Justin Rose (36) vs. Charles Howell III (45)

Justin Rose +105 Charles Howell III -125
1:20 a.m.
Ian Poulter (28) vs. Trevor Immelman (12)

Ian Poulter +105 Trevor Immelman -125
1:30 p.m.
Shaun Micheel (62) vs. Paul Casey (14)

Shaun Micheel +145 Paul Casey -165
1:45 p.m.
Niclas Fasth (38) vs. Geoff Ogilvy (11)

Niclas Fasth +130 Geoff Ogilvy -150
2:00 p.m.
Nick O'Hern (16) vs. Tiger Woods (1)

Nick O'Hern +350 Tiger Woods -500
2:10 p.m.
Henrik Stenson (9) vs. Aaron Baddeley (40)

Henrik Stenson -130 Aaron Baddeley +110
2:20 p.m.
Chad Campbell (34) vs. David Toms (18)

Chad Campbell +155 David Toms -170
2:30 p.m.
Stephen Ames (39) vs. Stewart Cink (23)

Stephen Ames +105 Stewart Cink -125

Vegas planning

OK - this post is for planning for the Vegas trip coming up. Lot of questions to be answered:

1) Right now, we have 8 people in for the trip, with 4 or 5 being there Wed night.
So does that mean 2 rooms or 3? I expect Mr. Derek "Eleanor Roosevelt" to speak up on this one.

2) Golf - how many rounds? I don't know if I want to play 2 rounds. Derek- want to take my place on one of those rounds with Wiz, Don, and Mike?

3) Dinner - any ideas or thoughts for dinner for any night?

I promise... last post on the Browns

On the day that the news came out that our star-crossed center, LeCharles Bentley, will undergo more surgery and may be out for 2007 and beyond, I wanted to wrap up the NFL season with this final post on the Browns.

You can blame Derek for this. On a phone call last week, Derek asked what I thought about Romeo. I said "well, of course I want him gone", irked that he didn't know that already. He replied that he didn't see any such announcement on the blog -and he's right. I never posted my thoughts on our beloved buffet-seeker Crennel.

So let me entertain you with the three key incidents this season that caused me to turn against Romeo. Theoretically, I think 2 years is not enough time to evaluate a head coach. Too many factors are out of your control, and progress that may be made may not be visible just by the W-L record (see Belicheck, 1991-92). However, I am now convinced that things aren't going to get better next year with Romeo.

1. Strategy adjustments between weeks: The first Pittsburgh game really hurt. Seeing the inbreds rally from a 10-0 halftime deficit - and it should have been much better than that for the Browns - was a stake to my heart, and it hurt even more because I was in Vegas and had to hear all those damn illerates jump up and down like they won the Super Bowl. Dammit.

That game hurt - and it hurt bad. But those losses happen. Once you take a step back, it was easy to see what happened - the Pittsburgh line was able to block our 4-man rush, and they spread the field with 4 receivers. They found the openings in our zone, and Ben dinked and dunked down the field three times in the th quarter. We could not stop that kind of offense - especially if we rushed just 4.

The next week we had Cincinnati at home. Their offense was very similar to what Pittsburgh ran in the 2nd half - los of receivers, an accurate quarterback, and a fairly decent line.

The question was - what would Romeo and company do differently to avoid the opposing offense to move up and down the field, like Pittsburgh in the 2nd half the week before?

Answer: Absolutely nothing.

We rushed 4, played the same soft zone - and Palmer, TJ and Chad had a field day. We lost 30-0 to the Bengals at home in a game that wasn't even that close. It was unbelievably frustrating to watch that. I don't know how many times I screamed "DO SOMETHING!!!" at the TV.

Yes, we may have been battered in the secondary, and we don't have a great pass rush - but jees, throw in some blitzes or something. We seemed to be taking Bobby Knight' s advice regarding what the woman should do when confronted....

2) Play calling. The one play that did it for me was the 2nd Pittsburgh game. This was the freezing cold Thursday night game on NFL network (that, oh, about 5, 417 viewers watched). We got the ball to start, made 2 first downs, punted; Pit made a first down, punted, and we started to move. So here we are late in the 1st quarter, 0-0, and we have a 3rd and 7 at the Pit 37 or so. One more first down by a pass....

What do we call? A fullback draw up the middle. On 3rd and 7. Against Pittsburgh.

For God's sake, we are 4-8. Throw the damn ball! It made me really question if we are trying to win at all.

What happened next is pure Cleveland:

a- we punt, and it's a good one! We back Pit up on its own 2
b - NFL network throws up a graphic saying the Steelers have not had a 95 yard (or more) TD drive since 2000 or so
c- yes, of course, the Steelers go 8 plays, 98 yards for a TD.

(I've got another play call - the anti-game of the year, Cle (3-12) vs TB (4-11). TB kicked off, but was offsides; they rekicked and kicked the ball out of bounds. We get the ball at the 45! A couple of first downs gave us 1st and 10 at the 30.... after 3 more plays, we have 4th and 7 at the TB 27. We are moving into a slight wind.

What to call? What to call? Again, first drive of the game here...

Browns line up in FG formation....

Snap directly to the kicker Dawson! He punts the ball! The ball hits and rolls...and rolls.... to the 5...4...3...2...1...end zone. Touchback. )

3) Game management. Let's go to the TB game. We are in the game, down only 19-0 , early in the 4th quarter. We just can't stop the Tim Rattay juggernaut.
Anyway, TB has the ball - Rattay goes back to pass ... he's hit! The ball is loose! The Browns pick it up and run 54 yards for the touchdown!

14:00 left in the game... now it's 19-6. What to do?

Now I know this may be hindsight, but Romeo did NOT go for 2. Going for 2 would make it 19-8, and get within 11- a TD and a FG. Instead, he kicked the XP and were down 19-7, requiring 2 TDs.

I didn't pick that mistake up at the time -I was too busy cheering I think - but this is the head coaches' JOB to know these situations. C'mon Romeo - did you leave that chart at the Old Country Buffet?

These three examples were in games in November or later - this is now late in year 2 of the Romeo regime. Who would think that year 3 would be any different? Why would it change now?

He's not going to learn. In fact, I submit he's gotten worse. Time to cut ties now before we lose another season down the drain... which is most likely what 07 will bring us - another year of going down the drain.

Wedding Crasher

So I crashed a wedding on Saturday. My sister is getting married later this year and is scoping out bands for the reception (I've retired my iPod DJ headphones), so we (me, my sister, and her fiancee) went to a wedding where one of the bands she is considering was playing.

The wedding was at the Tremont Grand hotel in Baltimore, on N. Charles Street. We walked into the room (a nice, but fairly typical hotel ballroom) and surveyed the crowd. Approximately 220 people, with the demographics of your typical wedding crowd. We were hoping to arrive late enough that everyone there had already had 4-5 cocktails and I think that we just about nailed it. After surveying the crowd for a minute or so, we headed for the bar. Marisa's (the bride) selection is a chocolate martini and Mike's (the groom) selection is a Budweiser. Hello, Baltimore! I opt for a Jack and Coke. No Jack, says the bartender, only Wild Turkey. Yikes! Wild Turkey and Coke it is. After we grab drinks, we settle into the far corner of the room to try to watch the band as unobtrusively as possible. Within 3 minutes, a guy comes walking up to us and asks us who we know. "We're friends of friends" I reply. Who invites friends of friends to a wedding?!?! Luckily for me, this guy is a dope. He's English and claims to be an engineer on a private yacht in Ft. Lauderdale. After some small talk, we finally ditch Capt. Stubing. My sister and her financee decide to try to talk to the band leader (they just stopped for a break) and I head back for another Turkey and Coke!

While at the bar a girl introduces herself to me. Wedding crasher rookie mistake #1, I give her my real name. Her name is Ariel, and she's Marisa's first cousin. Uh-oh, I can see this ending badly. Who do I know, Mike or Marisa? "I'm a friend of a friend." Luckily for me, our late arrival works in my favor again. She is WAY too hammered to care what I'm saying and leaves to talk to some other people. 30 seconds later, I am looking around the room to find my sister and I hear, "Leland!...LELAND!" Oh no--it's my new friend, and she wants to introduce me to a group of people. I walk over and meet her drunk friends and her mom. Luckily for me, they are all as drunk as she is and very easily entertained. I end up talking to Ariel and her mom for 10-15 minutes and really get them laughing (O/U on combined cocktails between Ariel and her mom = 16.5--I realize that I'm really not this funny.) At this point in the conversation, the bride starts walking over. Holy shit! If I don't get out of here, I can just see this ending very badly. I quickly excuse myself and head for the exit. Whew! That was enough wedding crashing for my maiden voyage.

Until next weekend, that is...

Party this weekend!

Let's lighten this up...

If I ever got this invitation to a party like this in Vegas, I'd have so many questions....

I'll list my questions in the comments.

Random Thoughts

Time for some College Basketball blogging!

1) I arrived back in Dayton last night from Iowa---the FRONT PAGE story on the Dayton Daily News was:
"City prepares for BIG game"
It took me a while to figure out what they were talking about. (And if I didn't know immediately, I'm sure none of you would know).

They were talking about the Raiders - the Wright State Raiders! #9 Butler (11-1, 23-2) comes to town for a Horizon league showdown against Wright State (11-2, 18-9). If Wright State wins, it's their first win over a top 10 team and also would LEAD the Horizon over the Butler Bulldogs.
I've actually played basketball on Wright State's floor--- their arena is located less than a mile from my old office in Dayton.
Butler favored by 4 on the road, o/u is 119.5. Tip off at 7 pm from the Nutter Center.

It's a sad year when Wright State is playing in the biggest game of the year for all of the SW Ohio college teams (Cincy, Xavier, Dayton, Miami...).

2) You may have seen that the NCAA invited 20 writers to participate in a mock bracket creation process. They locked the writers in a hotel and instructed them to create a bracket in 36 hours. Here's the story from Jay Bilas.

The story laid out the process for filling the bracket - and it enlightened the authors along the way. The key points that Jay Bilas (and others) got out of it:
1) there is no way the committee could keep track of the # of bids per conference. That is not talked....whoever are the best at large teams are selected, no matter what conference they are from.
2) the "interesting" matchups are not created by the NCAA for CBS's sake; they just happen by coincidence.

Hmmm..that's nice to hear, but it is what the committee says every year! Every year, the commnetators say "the big east deserves 6 bids", the committee says "we just look at the teams, not the # of bids from a conference" - and then the bracket comes out and the committee is ripped.

It seems like these commentators - Bilas and Digger are two of the worst * - have never gone through a bracket-filling exercise before today. This mock committee was the best thing to happen to educate these guys and show how tough this process is. Maybe they will remember these principles that have been spelled out to them before as we head into March.

* - Yes, I am ignoring Vitale, who every year makes the case for every bubble team and whose mock bracket would include 87 teams. He's beyond hope. But for Digger? There's no excuse. **

**- and I am ignoring Billy "any hoops played east of Virginia or north of Maryland is CRAP" Packer. I don't think he realizes how much creidibility he lost last year with his rant on the MVC and mid-majors.

3) God, Maryland is in BIG BIG BIG trouble. I am predicting that they need to win TWO of the upcoming three games against Duke (2) and UNC. That's the only way they can get back inthe discussion.

4) More ACC: a commenter to Lunardi's chat on ESPN actually asked a question about Duke - if they may not even make the NCAAs! It's not as preposterous as you think! They are 5-5 in conference and have FOUR road games left (Md, UNC, Clem, BC). It's easy to see them losing 3! One more home loss makes them 9 losses. A 7-9 team in the ACC would be squarely on the bubble - what if the team's name is Duke?

Who would have guessed that Duke's best win on Feb 10 is a win vs. Air Force? That win may be what ultimately saves the Blue Devils.

I predict them to be over-seeded as a #7 seed in the tourney, playing someone like BYU or Vanderbilt or George Washington or Missouri State. And Duke will lose.

Ah, IT does it again....

A great HR/IT story from the Iowa City plant:

1) On Thursday, a decision is made to terminate a line technician named "Pete".
2) Communication of termination will occur on Friday at 1 pm.... Pete works 2nd shift (from 2-10 pm) this week.
3) Manager submits request to the site IT folks to shut down Pete's access to the network/email effective Friday morning.
4) IT folks - who are contractors - complete request at 4 pm Thursday
5) IT folks send out email that request has been completed. Email sent out around 5 pm, and indicates that access will be turned off at 8 am Friday.

You can see this coming a mile away, huh?

6) On that email, IT folks cc:s Pete, the terminated employee.
7) Pete comes in for 2nd shift on Thursday, logs in.... oh, what's this? Sees the email from IT.

Oh yeah, morale on that team is great right now.

Thank you Hereford 9

Those great bloggers at Hereford 9 have been searching the internet for months to find something useful to post about. In the past they have brought us great posts like "top 5 movies" and "man I'm lonely".

Since the only viewer traffic it gets anymore is from that help guy from Myspace, I figured I'd bring the link over here. If you were at the wedding in December this will probably make you laugh. If not, then whatever.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2pEKEd-FQtQ

Maintain Radio Silence

Sorry for being MIA, but I'm personally being sued for defamation of character on some ex-employees that I terminated early last year. Its been a killer week.

But I would like to take a second and thank Tony Dungy for not kicking that field goal late in the game that would of screwed my under and my Teaser. Why didn't you kick that FG? That would of put you up by 2 touchdowns with 1:41 left. I almost cried when I didn't see the kicker come out on the field. One of the happiest moments in my life. Thanks!

Super Bowl 41 Pick

Been pretty quiet around here for the last few days. I've been swamped at work helping to lead a technical symposium and who knows what Derek has been doing.

The Super Bowl for me, recently, seems to be an afterthought to the regular season. For me, the hard-core analysis of the games ends with the Championship games. That's when my intense interest for the NFL ends. The two weeks between the championship games and the Super Bowl are filled with fluff and actually lessens my interest for the big game.

It's like having a great golf round through 16 holes - and then having to wait 30 minutes on the 17th tee while 4 other groups play the par-3. The two weeks - and all the sideshows - disrupt the flow of the season in a big way.

It's not just the Super Bowl - I have the same feeling about the NCAA tournament as well. I get so jacked up for the 1st and 2nd round games; the 2nd weekend is great as well - but by the time the final four weekend comes around, it's overhyped and usually involves teams I hate. I mean, who here can get excited about a UConn-Duke final, for instance? One team is completely overrated, overhyped, with a coach the media loves to love- and the other is Duke!

The last final I watched from start to finish (besides the Md-Indiana final) would be... hmmm... Kentucky-Arizona in 1997? But I can give you the greatest upsets in the 1st/2nd round every year since 1987 or so.

So the Super Bowl, for me, is an excuse to party and not be overly concerned with the ins and outs of the game. My prediction is based on the key matchup: the Colts offense vs. the Bears D.

I'm not convinced at all that the Colts are the overwhelming favorite here. Let's review the facts:

1) They scored 38 points at home versus a defense that was clearly beat up and undermanned and that was suffering through heat exhaustion/flu with the dome temperatures artificially inflated. Good for them that they won, yes - but let's not think this was a explosive performance against a great defense.

What about the other playoff games?

2) They scored 23 points vs. Kansas City at home - that same defense that:
- let up 30 points to the Jaguars,
- let up 45 points to the Steelers (!)
- let up 31 points to the Browns (!!)
- and is coached by Herman Edwards

How impressive is that?

(and yes, that's the one Browns reference for the post)

3) In their next game, they didnot score a TD vs. the Ravens. Baltimore's defense is good - ok, great- but this year it was not oneof the all time best and probably was close to the Bears' defense in terms of performance.

Look, we all know Peyton plays well when the conditions are perfect and their line is able to contain the rush - but this is the Bears. They will disrupt the Peyton with their line play and stunts. And - the game is on grass, not in a dome. The COlts on grass/outdoors this year:

at NYG: 26 pts
at NYJ: 31
at Den:34 (!)
at NE: 27
at Dal: 14 (!)
at Ten: 17
at Jax: 17
at Hou: 24
at bal: 15

The trend is not great.

So - can the Bears offense score enough to pull it out? I think Lovie Smith would be wise to copy the strategy of the Giants in Super Bowl 25 - use a ball control offense and keep the ball away from the other team. The question is whether Rex can actually execute that sort of offense.

The Colts' D is good, but not as good as Berman and co. have made it out to be over the past 2 weeks. Again, they let up 8 points against a Herm Edwards-led Chiefs team, and held the Ravens to 6 points in probably McNair's worst game this year. But they let up 34 to the Pats, a good offense. I'm not saying the Bears are as good on offense as the Pats, but they are playing better than the Ravens' o right now.

I'm calling the upset, as Lovie outcoaches Dungy and the Bears' D rattles Peyton.

Chicago 23, Indianapolis 20.

(post edited at 1:15 pm ET).

best bets for today:
Chicago +6 1/2
Under 47 1/2

After tonight, we can then concentrate on the really important things, like the NCAA tournament and why Virginia is in the driver's seat for a bid while the Terps still need to win a few games down the stretch to impress anyone.

I have a feeling the NIT will provide a Champs Sports Bowl rematch.....