The sports betting world has taken more twists and turns over this past week, and here at Bankroll Sports, we’re taking some time to rant of the worst from the week that was in the gambling world.

Rap Sheet Picture of the Week
F DeMarcus Cousins and G John Wall, who wrapped up their collegiate careers by getting embarrassed in the dance by West Virginia on Saturday night.

Boy, can you totally stick it for that lousy performance you put up on Saturday, Kentucky Wildcats! After watching the mighty Jayhawks and Orange fall before you, how dare you come out so flat against a very dangerous West Virginia team with a berth in the Final Four on the line! You had crushed your previous three foes by an average of 25.7 points per game in this tournament, and everyone was still waiting for the best games out of F Patrick Patterson, G John Wall, and F DeMarcus Cousins.

Never happened. Oops. Now, HC John Calipari has to go back to the drawing board, as he is likely losing his four best players to the NBA Draft this year, and in spite of the fact that he has totally ruined a number of schools with recruiting violations over the years, he still doesn’t have any National Championships to boast about on his resume.

Speaking of teams that have been incredibly upsetting, what the heck happened to everyone in that so-called “powerful” Midwest Bracket? The #1 Kansas Jayhawks, #2 Ohio State Buckeyes, #3 Georgetown Hoyas, and #4 Maryland Terrapins have all long since been forgotten, and the two teams left standing in this region on Sunday were arguably the two that went through the most chaos all year long. Tennessee had to deal with the whole New Year’s Day fiasco that got G Tyler Smith kicked off the team. Michigan State had injury woes with G Kalin Lucas suffering a torn Achilles tendon in the second round of the tourney. Yet, experience has ruled the day once again, as HC Tom Izzo is laughing at his other “great coaches” out of this bracket, as he has the final laugh with his second straight trip to the Final Four.

Our attention is turned to the NBA betting world as well this week. Hey Denver Nuggets, what’s going on with you guys? You’ve got one of the best offenses in the NBA at 107.1 points per game, but over your L/2 weeks, you’ve only averaged 97.7 points per game. No wonder why you’re 0-6-1 ATS in those seven games! Now, the punishment is that you’re sitting in the #3 hole coming into tonight’s game with Dallas, and you could fall all the way down to #8 by the time this is said and done, as the Trail Blazers are only 3.5 games behind you with eight to play. Guess who else is on your slate this week as well on the road?

List of Current Odds to Win The NCAA Tournament Can Be Found Below!

In spite of the fact that there was carnage for the duration of the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, the Sweet 16 saw many of the so called Cinderella squads bow out from the dance.

The one exception appears to be the #5 Butler Bulldogs, who pulled off the biggest upset in the third round of March Madness betting action by taking down #1 Syracuse and opening up the West Bracket in a big way. Their fellow mid-majors, the #12 Cornell Big Red, #11 St. Mary’s Gaels, and #9 Northern Iowa Panthers were all dismissed.

Still, there is a nice mix of conferences remaining amongst the last eight teams standing. The SEC and Big XII both have a pair of squads left, while the ACC, Big East, Horizon League, and Big Ten are all still represented as well.

The favorite to win it all is still the Kentucky Wildcats (+245 at 5Dimes). Even though HC John Calipari still steps up to the microphone following every single game and praises the work of his young freshmen and sophomores and downplays their abilities on the court, anyone watching this squad still knows that the best is probably yet to come. That’s saying something for a team that has posted an average margin of victory in this tournament of more than 25 points per game! G John Wall, F Patrick Patterson, and F DeMarcus Cousins just haven’t caught their stride yet on college basketball’s biggest stage, as the three have combined for just one 20+ point outing between them. If Big Blue is playing defense like it did against Cornell when it held the Big Red to just 33.3 percent shooting from the floor, this is going to be the hardest team left to topple in the tournament.

If you’re banking on long shots, the three longest odds on the board are all playing on the same half of the draw, and in all likelihood, one of the three will be playing for the National Championship. Either the #5 Michigan State Spartans (+1600 at 5Dimes) or #6 Tennessee Volunteers (+1200 at 5Dimes) will see their stock increase in value dramatically, particularly if the #5 Butler Bulldogs (+1500 at 5Dimes) can pull off the upset of the #2 Kansas State Wildcats (+435 at 5Dimes) in the Elite 8.

The other #1 seed remaining, the Duke Blue Devils (+355 at 5Dimes) continue to fly under the radar just a bit, as they’re being overshadowed by what Kentucky is doing in the East Region and all of the other upsets that have occurred in the dance thus far. However, even without getting anything really significant out of G Jon Scheyer in this tournament, Coach K has his club playing well enough on the defensive side of the ball to be able to make life absolutely hellacious for his opponents.

His Dookies will take on the final team that we have yet to discuss, the #3 Baylor Bears (+985 at 5Dimes), who are going to be playing essentially behind a home crowd at the Toyota Center after annihilating one of the Cinderella teams in this field (St. Mary’s) on Friday night.

Current March Madness Odds @ 5Dimes Sportsbook(as of 3/27/10):
(Get a HUGE 50% Bonus at 5Dimes Sportsbook When Using This Link)

Kentucky +245
Duke +355
Kansas State +435
West Virginia +785
Baylor +985
Tennessee +1200
Butler +1500
Michigan State +1600

Just 16 teams remain in the NCAA Tournament! There are a ton of juicy prop bets that are still available as we enter the second week of this three week spectacle, and BetUS Sportsbook has all of the ins and outs covered for you as you boost your bankrolls with the biggest tournament of the year!

Prop Bet #1 – Will all three #1 seeds reach the Elite 8?: Let’s just do some simply math at this point, shall we? If you take the best three lines you can find anywhere on the internet on the three #1 seeds to win on Thursday and Friday, you’ll come to just about +105 odds. By parlaying the Duke Blue Devils (-450), the Syracuse Orange (-290), and the Kentucky Wildcats (-500) on the moneyline at BetUS Sportsbook, you’ll come up with about -103 odds. Under that premise, there’s no reason to lay -115 with this prop, but there’s also no reason to wager no either. However, we do like the idea of assuming that the #1s are all getting through this weekend. Unlike Kansas, who was tested by #16 Lehigh for a little while before ultimately pulling away, the Cats, Dookies, and Orange have just come out and throttled their opponents so far in the dance. There’s no reason to think that an undermanned Purdue team is going to be able to stop the mighty Blue Devils, and certainly no reason to believe that a bunch of Ivy Leaguers are going to be able to stop a John Calipari coached team with almost a full week of preparation. That leaves Syracuse playing Butler. The Orange have probably been the most impressive of the #1 seeds after having rocked Gonzaga in the second round, and even though we’re not so sure that they’re the right choice against the six point spread, we are convinced that getting -103 odds on the moneyline for them is a fantastic price. So ignore the prop line, but run with the idea.
Selection: Parlay Kentucky, Duke, and Syracuse on the moneyline (-103) at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

Prop Bet #2 – Odds to win the South Region: It’s pretty clear that the Blue Devils are the favorites to win this bracket and go to the Final Four, but is that really justifiable at -145 odds? What you’re saying is that Coach K’s team is going to be at least three, if not four point favorites in a prospective Elite 8 matchup with Baylor? That doesn’t feel like what’s going to happen, especially if Duke even remotely struggles with #4 Purdue or the Bears obliterate #10 St. Mary’s. Don’t rest on the talent level on this Baylor team. G LaceDarius Dunn dropped 26 points on Old Dominion in the second round, and he has the ability to go off for 30+ on just about every team that he faces. Yes, this test against St. Mary’s is probably going to be a lot harder than it looks on paper with a #3 going against a #10, but if the Bears survive that one, you’ve got some fantastic odds on them to go to the Final Four.
Selection: Baylor Bears +225 at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

Prop Bet #3 – Odds to Reach NCAA Championship Final: We’re keying in on the left hand side of your bracket in the West and Midwest Regions. It’s pretty clear that the Midwest Bracket opened up a ton when #9 Northern Iowa knocked off overall #1 seed in this tournament, Kansas. Any of the four teams could still represent that region in our opinion. That leaves a date with most like either Syracuse or Kansas State in the Final Four. Why not take a stab on the Panthers at great odds in this situation? It’s basically a coin flip that they take out Michigan State, and we like our chances of Sparty getting bounced without G Kalin Lucas in the lineup. Yes, it could be a very difficult #2 Ohio State squad in the Elite 8, but it could just as easily be an overrated #6 Tennessee team as well. You may look up next week and see that you’ve got great odds on a mid-major team to win just one more game on the grandest stage in college basketball.
Selection: Northern Iowa Panthers +3000 at BetUS Sportsbook. (100% Deposit Bonus by clicking This Link.)

List of Current Sweet 16 Odds to Win The NCAA Tournament Can Be Found Below!

March Madness. That’s why we all watch and love the NCAA Tournament. Because no lead is ever safe and no favorite is every assured anything. It doesn’t matter if you’re favored by a single point or two dozen. Any team can, and quite frequently does beat anyone.

Ask the chalks of this tournament, the #1 Kansas Jayhawks out of the Midwest Bracket. At some sportsbooks, they were as low as +200 to win the entire tourney coming into play on Saturday, and they were sizeable favorites to take out the Missouri Valley champs, the #9 Northern Iowa Panthers.

Nobody told that to G Ali Farokhmanesh, who stood like a warrior at the three point line, stared the mighty Jayhawks in the face, damned the fact that his team had absolutely no business playing with the top team in the land, and let a brown dagger fly through the sky. When that dagger flushed through the twine, Farokhmanesh was immediately placed in lore in tiny Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Forget about the fact that Farokhmanesh’s shot really had no business being taken. It defied all logic. After all, the Panthers were up a point with the ball with less than 30 seconds to play, and any conventionally thinking person would’ve dribbled around and waited to get fouled.

But defying logic is what makes this tournament great. And now, #1 is no more.

The beauty of this tournament this season is that there are 11 conferences represented in the Sweet 16 and only the Big Ten has three representatives. Fans from all across the country will have a relatively local team to latch onto, which could make this a very, very interesting four days of basketball coming up this weekend.

The new favorites of the field are the #1 Kentucky Wildcats (+250 at 5Dimes Sportsbook. The Cats have looked great in two tourney games so far, winning against both #16 East Tennessee State and #9 Wake Forest by 20+ points apiece. Stopping G John Wall, G Eric Bledsoe, F Patrick Patterson, and F DeMarcus Cousins seems like a nearly impossible task, especially for some lowly #12 seed out of the Ivy League… but beating names like Aldrich, Morris, Morris, and Collins didn’t seem likely for a bunch of Missouri Valley guys either.

As for those Valley dwellers, they’re still the second longest shot to win the tournament on the board at +6600 at 5Dimes Sportsbook, and there’s reason to believe that those odds are simply too long. UNI draws #5 Michigan State in the Sweet 16, a team that is going to be playing without G Kalin Lucas for the remainder of the season courtesy of a ruptured Achilles tendon. Without Lucas this year, the Spartans looked like an average team at best, and an extraordinary performance once again by the men clad in purple and gold could lead to yet another upset and a date with either #2 Ohio State or #6 Tennessee in the Elite 8.

Both the #1 Duke Blue Devils (+450 at 5Dimes Sportsbook) and the #1 Syracuse Orange (+475 at 5Dimes Sportsbook) have relatively easy draws to get to the Final Four for top seeds, as the Orange must beat #5 Butler and then either #2 Kansas State or #6 Xavier, while things have opened up particularly nicely for the Dookies, who get #4 Purdue this week and will finish the weekend with either #3 Baylor or #10 St. Mary’s.

Current Sweet 16 Odds @ 5Dimes Sportsbook (as of 3/23/10):
(Get a HUGE 50% Bonus at 5Dimes Sportsbook When Using This Link)

Kentucky +250
Duke +450
Syracuse +475
Ohio State +825
West Virginia +850
Kansas State +950
Baylor +1800
Michigan State +2500
Tennessee +3300
Butler +4000
Xavier +4500
St. Mary’s +5500
Washington +5500
Purdue +6000
Northern Iowa +6600
Cornell +7500

March Madness has officially kicked off, as conference tournaments are underway and the first official tickets to the dance will be handed out in the days to come. When it’s all said and done, there are 35 teams that won’t win their conference tournaments that are invited to the grandest dance in the world anyway.

Truth be told, a whole bunch of those spots have already been handed out for certain. Figure that these teams, without any shred of a doubt whatsoever, are already making plans for being in the brackets come Selection Sunday…

Atlantic 10 (3): Temple, Xavier, Rhode Island
ACC (1): Duke
Big XII (4): Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Texas
Big East (4): Syracuse, Villanova, West Virginia, Pittsburgh
Big Ten (4): Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan State, Wisconsin
Mountain West (2): New Mexico, BYU
SEC (3): Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee

Now, we’ll argue that one of these teams from each conference is going to get their respective league’s automatic bid to the tourney. That makes 14 at-large bids that are certainly gone. If you’re team’s not on this list above and you think you’re going to the NCAA Tournament, you’d better pay really good attention to the rest of this article.

Everyone get out your Gonzaga shirt, your Murray State hat, your Northern Iowa socks, your Siena sweater, your Old Dominion shoes, and your Butler underwear.

In a perfect world, all six of these teams are just going to win their conference tournaments and take their automatic slots in the field. That would leave the other, oh, 40 or so of you out there the maximum possible 21 tickets to fight for.

However, this isn’t a perfect world, and this is what makes the madness of March so fantastic. In the event that the Zags, Racers, Panthers, Saints, Monarchs, and/or Bulldogs happens to lose a game in the next week or so in their conference tournaments, they’ll be thrust into the at-large pool with the rest of you suckers that are groveling to the Selection Committee to put you in the field of 65 in spite of the fact that you have obvious flaws on your resumes. In the cases of Gonzaga, Northern Iowa, and Butler, they’re not going to join the 40 of you that are praying to get in. They’re going to join the 14 that already know that they’re in the driver’s seat.

For Murray State, Siena, and Old Dominion, not winning their conference tournaments may leave them in the NIT. Or maybe it won’t. One thing is for certain, though. If you happened to lose to one of these three teams in the regular season (I’m looking at you Georgetown and Charlotte!), you’d better hope that that team gets into the field via the automatic bid, because if they don’t, you’re going to be subjected to having the Dikembe Mutombo finger waved at you for having lost the head-to-head series against a fellow bubble dweller.

The beauty about college basketball though, is that virtually everyone gets a chance. If you want to play in the NCAA Tournament, play your way into the field. Keep winning in your conference tournaments, and you’ll find your way onto the dance floor one way or the other.

If not and your bubble pops, don’t go blaming anyone but yourself.

Let the madness of March begin…

After two weeks worth of great Olympics betting action, the festivities in Vancouver have finally come to a close. There’s plenty left to rant and rave about in the American sports scene, none of which have anything to do with the efforts of the US hockey team, which claimed silver medals after losing in overtime to the Canadians in Sunday’s gold medal game.

Rap Sheet Picture of the Week
Purdue Boilermakers F Robbie Hummel, who suffered a season-ending injury in the same week that his team lost any hope of a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Last week, we took some time to rant about how poorly the Villanova Wildcats played against bubble teams in the Big East. Now, it’s time for the Georgetown Hoyas to step up and face the music. C’mon guys… Losing at home to Notre Dame, playing without its stud F Luke Harangody? That makes two completely inexcusable and embarrassing losses at home on the season, with the other coming at home against South Florida back on February 3rd. Only managing 15 rebounds as a team against the Irish was quite disgusting, and the end result was just as repulsive for a team that once upon a time believed it was good enough to be on the #1 line in the NCAA Tournament.

Don’t think that you’re getting away from this one, Boston Celtics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you complaining now that you were playing without your best player, F Paul Pierce against the New Jersey Nets on Saturday night. No offense, but if you took your entire regular starting five out of the lineup, you’d still have a squad that was lined at -4 at home against the Nets. Oh, you don’t believe me? Tell me that you’d rather have Devin Harris, Courtney Lee, Yi Jianlian, Trenton Hassell, and Brook Lopez over Marquis Daniels, Nate Robinson, Glen Davis, Rasheed Wallace, and Tony Allen. Get real fellas. If your boy Ray Allen keeps putting up 3/11 shooting nights, you won’t even survive the first round of the playoffs let alone make a run at the NBA title.

The New Mexico Lobos got arguably their biggest win of the season on Saturday when they knocked off BYU in the closing moments of their game 83-81 to clinch up the Mountain West regular season title. However, that’s not what we’re ranting about. We’re ranting about that ridiculous postgame altercation that HC Steve Alford had with one of the Cougars. Hey Coach, you know better than this. You can’t sit there and yell at a player on the opposing team (or your own team for that matter), “I’m going to tell you real clear… You’re an [expletive]!” That marred a big win for your team, Alford, and you owe your guys a heck of a lot better than that.

As an American, it’s really easy to rant on the Russians, but in this case, there were two boneheads that deserve it. Alexander Ovechkin decided that it was a great idea to bust up a camera after his hockey team was bounced from the Olympics. A great display of sportsmanship in an athletic event that is designed to promote the essence of being a good sport in representing your nation.

However, that wasn’t nearly the funniest, yet disgraceful Russian moment of the Olympics. President Dmitry Medvedev demanded that all of the Russian sports officials that were responsible for the debacle that was the country’s dismal 15 medal performance in the Winter Olympics to resign their posts. He claimed, “I think that the individuals responsible, or several of them, who answer for these preparations, should take the courageous decision to hand in their notice. If we don’t see such decisiveness, we will help them.”

So let’s get this straight, el presidente… You’re going to force out all of your Olympic coaching representatives right after the Vancouver games?

Man, are things going to be difficult for the other countries coming onto Russian soil for the 2014 Games in Sochi…

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If you’re Bernadette McGlade, you’re really biting your fingernails about Wednesday night on the hardwood. Why, you may ask?

McGlade is the Commissioner of the Atlantic 10, a conference which could still get as much exposure as having seven or eight teams in March Madness, and as little as three.

This could be the day that all of this mess is sorted out…

… Or it could be another day where more madness is made!

Let’s start with the teams that we know are in awfully good shape, shall we?

The Temple Owls have put together a resume that just about any team would be proud to have. They’re 22-5, have 11 wins away from the City of Brotherly Love to their resume, and a dominant 10-2 record against the very difficult A-10. They’re in, and we know it. The only question is how high they’ll end up ranking when it’s all said and done.

Then there are the Richmond Spiders and the Xavier Musketeers, of which are a combined 31-20 against the college basketball spreads on the season. Both have great wins against big conference opponents, and they’re also a combined 21-4 in conference play. Again, they’re both dancing barring a collapse of epic proportions.

Now, the rest of the bunch…

The Rhode Island Rams are the only team in the A-10 of any bubble consequence to be off on Wednesday night. They’re probably sitting right there on the bubble at 20-6 overall, as an 8-5 record in the A-10 and a rather weak out-of-conference schedule aren’t helping their case any.

The teams that really have make-or-break nights are the Charlotte 49ers, the Dayton Fliers, and the St. Louis Billikens.

Charlotte has been going in the wrong direction now for a few weeks, which has taken it from being a sure-fire tourney team to one that is probably just barely hanging on to its position on the bubble. Tonight, the 49ers will look to end their string of three straight losses against a St. Joe’s team that is only 1-10 on the road this season and has lost four straight of its own.

A win probably won’t help Charlotte much, as it is a 9.5-point NCAA basketball betting favorite, but a loss would be devastating and most likely lethal.

Dayton and St. Louis are far different stories. Both teams have identical 18-8 records. The Billikens’ 9-3 A-10 record looks better than the 7-5 mark of the Fliers, but St. Louis doesn’t have OOC wins against Georgia Tech and Old Dominion like Dayton does. The Fliers have a better RPI (43) than do the Billikens (82), but if the Selection Committee is interested in “what have you done for me lately,” St. Louis has won six straight, while Dayton has lost two of its L/3 and is only 5-5 in its L/10.

The resumes are remarkably similar, and both teams are sitting right there in that “last four in” or “last four old” block. Even tonight, these two teams are taking a similar path. Both are 4.5-point underdogs against one of these teams that we’ve already classified as locks for the NCAA Tournament.

Dayton travels to Temple tonight at 6:30 ET, while St. Louis plays host to Xavier with tip-off scheduled for 8:00 ET.
At the end of the day today, a lot of bubble teams floating around the country will either be a heck of a lot happier or under a lot more pressure.

Even though the Commissioner of a conference isn’t supposed to take sides, it’s hard to blame Bernadette McGlade for wearing her Dayton hat, her Charlotte jersey, and her St. Louis sweatpants while she watches these games this evening.