Vermont takes America East title with win over BU

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/13/2010 - Burlington, VT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marqus Blakely scored 24 points, grabbed 18 rebounds and handed out five assists, leading Vermont back to the NCAA Tournament with an 83-70 victory over Boston University in the championship game of the America East Tournament.

Nick Vier added 15 points and Maurice Joseph chipped in 13 for Vermont (25-9), which captured its fourth AEC championship and first since a three-year run from 2003-05. The Catamounts' last NCAA Tournament appearance was a memorable one in 2005, as they upset Syracuse in the first round before falling to Michigan State.

Corey Lowe scored 24 points to lead Boston University (19-13), which knocked off top-seeded Stony Brook last Sunday in the semifinals and was making its first visit to the AEC title game since a 56-55 loss to Vermont in 2003. The Terriers last won the tournament in 2002.

John Holland, BU's leading scorer at 19.3 points per game, made just 3-of-11 shots and finished with only nine points. Jake O'Brien contributed 17 points in defeat.

Vermont led by 11 at the break and a bucket to open the second half stretched the margin to 13, but BU scored six straight at one point to trim a 12-point deficit in half and drew within 54-53 with 11 minutes left on a three-pointer by Lowe.

The Terriers then had two possessions with a chance to take the lead and failed to convert either time, and Vermont capitalized with a layup by Evan Fjeld and a three-pointer by Joseph for a six-point edge with just under eight minutes to play.

Blakely hit a pair from the stripe to extend the lead to 61-53, but BU trimmed the margin back to four at 62-58 before going cold again. Vier and Garvey Young connected on three-pointers to fuel a 9-2 run that gave Vermont a 71-60 lead with 2 1/2 minutes remaining.

The Terriers never threatened again.

Vermont extended a three-point edge with a run of seven straight points midway through the opening half, as Vier hit a three-pointer and Blakely scored the next four for a 24-14 lead.

The Terriers got as close as six a couple of times before Vermont took a 42-31 advantage to the intermission after a Blakely bucket in the lane just before the buzzer.

Game Notes

Blakely, the conference's Player of the Year each of the two previous seasons, recorded his 17th double-double of the campaign...Fjeld, playing just days after his mother died of cancer, scored nine for Vermont...The Catamounts shot 57.8 percent overall and connected on 8-of-14 three-point tries, led by Vier's 4-for-4 effort from beyond the arc...The Terriers hit 38.2 percent from the field and made 10-of-23 from three-point range...BU has won five AEC tourney crowns, the most of any current member of the league. Northeastern, currently a member of the CAA, won seven AEC titles.

Sportslone NCAA Basketball Betting News

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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