Cavs and Pack square off Raleigh

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

01/28/2012 - Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two teams continuing to jockey for position within the ACC meet in Raleigh tonight, as the 19th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers take on the NC State Wolfpack.

Virginia is an impressive 16-3 this season, but the team is just a game over .500 in conference (3-2). The Cavaliers took care of visiting Boston College with relative ease the last time out, 66-49, but they have alternated wins and losses over their last four bouts. Virginia is 4-1 in true road games this season, giving the team some extra confidence heading into this clash.

NC State took on bitter rival North Carolina on Thursday night, and was beaten back in a 74-55 loss in Chapel Hill. As a result, the Wolfpack enter this contest with a 15-6 overall ledger, and they are 4-2 in ACC action. NC State has won 11 of its first 14 home games of the season, and including this matchup, will play five of its final nine regular-season bouts in Raleigh.

NC State owns an 80-57 lead in the all-time series with Virginia, but the Cavs have won six of the last eight meetings.

Virginia's strength is its ability to play shut-down defense, as the team is allowing a paltry 50.1 ppg to rank among the national leaders in that category. Foes are shooting just 38.7 percent from the field overall, and only 26.9 percent from three-point range. The Cavaliers also control the glass (+7.0 rebounding margin), and are +2.3 in turnover differential. From an offensive standpoint, the team boasts one of the league's top performers in Mike Scott, who hits his total shots 58.1 percent of the time, his free throws at an 81.2 percent clip, and he grabs 8.4 rpg for good measure. Joe Harris (12.3 ppg) is the only other double-digit scorer for Virginia, which puts up 64.4 ppg on 45.7 percent field goal efficiency, which includes a 33.3 percent showing from beyond the arc. Scott was high man once again for the Cavaliers in their recent rout of Boston College, going 7-of-11 from the floor in netting 18 points. Akil Mitchell and Jontel Evans chipped in 10 points apiece for coach Tony Bennett's club, which shot 50.9 percent from the field and turned the ball over only eight times.

NC State took it on the chin in its recent matchup with rival North Carolina, as the team shot just 36.8 percent from the field and only 44.4 percent from the foul line. In contrast, the Tar Heels made good on 48.4 percent of their total shots and dominated the glass to the tune of a 48-26 rebounding advantage. The Wolfpack did manage to hit nine three-pointers in the game, but they committed 17 turnovers and were outscored in the paint, 42-20. Scott Wood was the only player to reach double figures for coach Mark Gottfried's squad, as he tallied 11 points even though he went just 4-of-12 from the floor. Wood is one of five double-digit scorers on the roster for NC State, as he leads the team with 13.2 ppg on the strength of his 44.4 percent (56-of-126) effort from beyond the arc. C.J. Leslie (12.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg), Lorenzo Brown (12.2 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 7.2 apg), C.J. Williams (11.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg) and Richard Howell (11.7 ppg, 9.0 rpg) round out the group, which averages 75.9 ppg on 47.2 percent field goal efficiency, which includes 37.0 percent from downtown. The Wolfpack yields 68.6 ppg, and lays claim to a +5.4 rebounding margin.

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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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