So say goodbye to the favorite team. I don’t know, I have to confess a thing for Cinderella stories, and this was just an amazing game. The Jayhawks were a -11.5 point favorite, but little could they do once the game started. The Panthers were the strongest team from the start. They were up by 8 points by halftime. And sure enough, Kansas came in baffling in the second half, trying to make up for the difference. But it was not the best night for either, Bill Self, or Sherron Williams or any of the top-notch players which gave Kansas the best record of the season.

You just have to absolutely this Tournament. It’s never over hyped. It’s never dull. Theirs is always a chance for the big upset, for the unexpected. That’s why we take our chances on these games and make our picks. It’s been quite a mad march. And it seems it can only get better.

At +600 on the ML for Norther Iowa, this is one of those moments when most of us wonder why we don’t play the underdog more often. What an intense game this was. Can’t help feel a bit sad for the many Jayhawks fans out there. But this is why we just love this tournament. Anything can happen.

This is a very strong team, with a highly effective offense and a solid defense that ranks among the top 5 teams in the Nation in the statistical categories that matter most.

Sherron Collins has been a key player in setting up a good tempo for the Jayhawks offensive. He is also Coach Bill Self’s weapon of choice for those hard to make and decisive shots. But interesting enough, the Jayhawks don’t rely completely on their distributor. Every major rotation player uses between 20 and 23% of the teams possessions while on the floor.

In terms of wagering the Jayhawks are not as strong as their Straight Up record might suggest. For instance, Kansas State is 19-9 ATS, while Kansas is only 14-16 when it comes to covering their spread. But there is more here to consider. Once the postseason kicked in, the Jayhawks just got stronger in terms of wagering. They have covered their spread in 4 of their last 5 games, which is quite an improvement from the 46.7 overall ATS percentage.

There is always a chance for an upset. And the players must also realize that this particular region is packed with very strong and demanding teams. KU could see either UNLV or Northern Iowa in the second round. The Jayhawks could find either Michigan State or Maryland in the Sweet Sixteen round. All though a bit inconsistent, the Spartans could easily get KU into trouble. As if that was not enough, if we keep speculating down the road, they might have to muscle past Ohio State or Georgetown for the regional final. What I’m saying here is that KU might have to push harder then some other reporters have tried to make it seem in order to get to the Final Four.

Now keep an eye out for a Tennessee vs San Diego State match in the first round. As of press time, the Tennessee Volunteers are a -3½ point favorite in BetIAS NCAA Basketball Wagering Lines.  But this promises to be one of the best games of the region. They are expected to put out a great show. This is one of the factors that make this such an interesting region: Talented players all over the bracket. Consider Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez, Northern Iowa’s Adam Koch and Oklahoma State’s James Anderson. As if that was not enough you also have KU’s Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, Georgia Tech’s Derrick Favors and UNLV’s Tre’von Willis, so keep an eye out for all those players and make some money out of their talent playing on the extensive list of Props and Matchups that BetIAS has to offer in their selection of March Madness Props.

Before the first round of the NCAA Tournament begins, the Syracuse Orange is 19-9 ATS. So they have covered their spread in 67.9% of their games. That’s 25% better then Kansas and almost 12% improvement over Kentucky’s ATS performance.

But Syracuse is not as strong as one would like before the First Round. They have lost their two previous games against Louisville and Georgetown by at least 7 points. Sure they had already won the Big East Conference title outright, but things didn’t go well in the conference tourney. Add the recent injury of power-forward Arinze Onaku’s quadriceps and suddenly the team seams to be hurting in both defense and offense.

Two years ago, the Vermont Catamounts stun them and send the Orange back home before in the first round in 2005. The team is not going to miss Onaku too much in their first game against the Catamounts, they are a -17.5 point favorite here. But they must be wishing for a quick healing in Onaku’s quads, because they probably won’t make it pass the Elite Eight or the Final Four if the 6-foot-9 forward is not battling over the paint. They are sure going to need him if they make it down the NCAA Tournament Bracket and into the Elite Eight and meet Kansas State, which is a formidable team in the interior.

Watch out for UTEP and Butler. These two powerful teams are sure enough going to make up for one exciting game. The Bulldogs go into the opening round with a 20 game win streak. UTEP on the other hand has two very big players in the front, at 6-9 and 6-11 respectively, both Derrick Caracter and Arnet Moultrie are the kind of players that could get Butler’s star player, Matt Howard, into trouble. As of press time, Butler is a -2½ point favorite. But chances are that UTEP could very well take this game and make it into the second round, probably against (-3 point favorite over Murray State) Vanderbilt, a strong team that really needs to improve its performance on defense.

While you are at it, keep an eye out for BYU’s Jimmer Fredette. He has averaged 37.5 points per game in his last to appearances with the team. He has a 44.8% in the 3-point range and is quite a safe choice on free throws. Look around for Props and Matchups for this and other players in the NCAA Tournament at BetIAS.com

If we look at the odds, and take some chances, it is quite possible that both Syracuse and Kansas State are going to meet again in the Elite Eight Round. And if this happens, then the orange are really going to need Onaku at his best. And it’s not quite certain the nature of the injury or if he is going to be back in the field anytime soon. The Wildcats, on the other hand, have been extremely good picking up balls from the boards. They’ve grabbed 40.6% of available rebounds this season.

Mizzou had a good regular season, finishing 5th in the Big 12 with a 10-6 conference record, and holding a 22-10 overall mark, so chances for an opening round upset at Kansas City, Mo., were quite unexpected. But the Cornhuskers dominated every aspect of their game. They outrebounded, outshot, and outperformed the Tigers with ease. It might be a long shot, but there’s still a chance to see this guys in March Madness.

The Cornhuskers made it quite clear with a 16-1 run from the beginning that the Tigers where in for more than they could chew. Yet the Tigers fans were still quite enthusiastic for a while. Mizzou had easily defeated the Tigers in their previous two matches this season. Until the talented Brandon Richardson brought his A-game and came in with 19 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists.

The Tigers were a -13 point favorite over Nebraska in their first game of the season and a -4.5 point favorite on their second game against the Cornhuskers. In neither game were the Cornhuskers able to cover their spread. Matter of fact, Nebraska was 7-14 ATS for the regular season, while Missouri was 14-11.

Kim English pulled the tigers to a 61-51 with 4:01 to play.  Yet Richardson came along with a 3 pointer taking a foul from Zaire Taylor for a nice 4 point play that sealed that game. Ryan Anderson had 16 points while Jorge Diaz had 10 of his own to help tip off the game on Nebraska’s side. It sure was not a good game for the Big 12 Tournament defending Champions.

I am aware that other Sports News sites offer very complete blogs with statistics and constant first-hand updates. I visit them too. Those sites are great, but mean very little to the bettor. On the other hand, this site is written for players by players, and from true insiders of the offshore wagering industry. I’m part of a group of young writers offering you important betting-related-statistics that might just put you over the edge.

Other handicapping sites offer you winning peaks in exchange for money. Not here. I will not pretend to know enough to tell you if the Duke Blue Devils or any other team is going to cover its spread or not in the next game. If you look around in the blog you will not see any of that. I like the thrill, the research, the speculating involved in making every pick.

This is what our team does. It keeps track of every opening and closing line offered at BetIAS; it follows up with final-scores and keeps track of various key-teams’ performances in terms of wagering: this is, how many times has a team covered its spread in the regular  season; how many of its games have gone over or under; what is their wining percentage when playing Against The Spread (ATS), etc.  We have prepared this table with both sports-based and bettor-related information of the Top 6 Ranked teams according to the Associated Press poll.

Not only did the Wildcats play a great game. The team also finished the season with a perfect home record. The 18-0 at home record ties with the 1985-86 season for the best performance in the program´s history.

Kentucky holds a 14-2 in conference game record this season that has them ranked as No. 2 in the Nation. The Wildcat’s are the undisputed leaders of the Southern Conference Standing.

After Vanderbilt lost its game against South Carolina on Saturday night, the Wildcats needed only to win over the Gators to clinch their 44th SEC title.

The Gators lost to Kentucky, but there is no reason why Florida shouldn’t win some games in the SEC Tournament this next weekend. If they want to be part of this year´s March Madness, they better outshine their competition during the tournament in Nashville.

Kentucky has had a great season. The team holds a 29-2 overall straigh-up record, and its quite possible they are going to take one of the No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament Bracket. But Kentucky has also proved to be a strong team in terms of wagering odds. As of press time, the Wildcats are 16-13 against the spread (ATS) for the regular season.

Those are good numbers for a top ranked team. Yet they have not covered the spread in their last three games against Florida, Morehead State and Miami Ohio. Yet we are talking about -10 plus points deficit on each of these games. That’s a 55.2 % for Kentucky against the Odds. On the other hand, Tennessee is 23-7 Straight Up, and sits second in the SEC East conference, but has a 12-15 record ATS.

John Calipari has usually started three freshmen and one sophomore this season. Yet for this special occasion the team’s only seniors, Mark Krebs, Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris, started and played the first five minutes. Also honored on Senior Day was usual starter Patterson, a junior who is expected to graduate a year earlier and enter the NBA draft.

This was the final home game for senior player Greivis Vasquez, who scored 20 points, including a terrific basket with 37 seconds left to finish off the Blue Devils 8-game winning streak.

It was also the final home game for other key players in Maryland. Landon Milbourne and Eric Hayes were also honored before the game started. This was a big game for the Terrapins´fans, for this was the first victory against Duke in the last 7 tries.

Both teams were aware of the importance of the match. The Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title was at stake here. And the team reacted well to the pressure. Jordan Williams had 15 points and 11 rebounds.

It was payback time. The Terrapins had not lost a game since de Blue Devils defeated them by 21 points back on February 13th. Duke gave a good fight. Nolan Smith went on to score 20 points and Jon Sheyer gave another 19 to the Devil´s count, but it was not enough to claim victory in what proved to be a tough road game for Duke.

We don´t mean to take credits away from the Terrapins. They did win outright and with plenty of merits. Yet, Duke´s center, Brian Zoubek, who had scored 16 points and gained 17 rebounds on their previous matchup against Maryland, went totally off the radar. He had an awful night. Zoubek finished with only 4 points and 13 boards.

It was a close game, all the way to the very end. It was 69-69 until Jordan Williams scored on a fast breakthrough. Then Duke missed twice. Without missing a beat, Vasquez tucked the ball and moved his way up in the air to clear some space to shoot for a sweet shot that make it 73-69. And the crowd just went absolutely wild after that. This was it. Maryland is quite looking good to take a spot into the NCAA Tournament.

If they can keep up the good work, it wont surprise us if both teams make it into March Madness.

Before the season started, both Collins and the center Cole Aldrich made a pact for their senior season. Some sort of if-you-stay-I-stay pact that would give Kansas just enough talent, stamina and experience to win a second National Championship in three years.

Collins had a rough night. He was 1-7 from 3-point range and 5-15 overall. Not quite espectacular yet he was still able to score 17 points and help out a bit on defense.

Sherron Collins guided Kansas to its first big cornerstone on their way to the National Championship. They already won the Big 12 regular-season championship. Now the Jayhawks are going for the Big 12 Tournament where they´ll be the #1 seed in their route to make some headlines in the NCAA Tournament. The team is expected to go all the way into the Final Four in Indianapolis in April.

Xavier Henry had one heck of a first time. He went on to score 15 of his 19 points in that  period and helped take down Kansas State to extend the nation´s longest home winning streak to 59 games. The Jayhawks have clearly dominated the rivalry agains Kansas State in the Big 12 era. And they are looking good to take the No. 1 seed during March Madness.

If one plainly looked into the numbers, one would realize that Collins is not going to leave Lawrence, KS, as the school´s career leader in points, assists, rebounds or steals. None of that. But he is going to walk out of that campus with more victories then any other player in school´s history. Thats 125, and you can keep them counting.

Even Head Coach, Bill Self, is aware of Collin´s charisma and the appreciations that many Jayhwaks fans have shown for the player.

Kansas State kept it close for a while. Both guards Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente gave the Jayhawks a hard time in the defensive side. But then the front line struggled with foul trouble. And that gave the Jayhawks and edge over the Wildcats.

Up to the first half it seemed that the Wildcats had a shot at a first conference title in 33 years. Yet a poor performance in the second half brought down the little hope that was left. The team only had 11 assists in the whole game. They were really hurting in that department.

Right after the second half started, the Wildcats were able to tied the game at 45 points. But that was it. Then it all went south for Kansas State. Collins finally got his aim straight and was able to score seven straight points to lead the Jayhawks to a 66-56 advantage. But the deed is done. Now Kansas has to go over into the postseason and show why they are the favorite team to take it all.

This particular year you probably already took some action on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, and perhaps you are seriously considering taking part on the action for the 2010 South Africa Soccer World Cup. Even if you are not that much into soccer, you know that there is plenty of betting action and great promotions coming up for that event.

Perhaps you are a well-versed player and even marked down the dates for each of the horse-races in the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Races: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stake and the Belmont Stake, or all the other events you can play on through our racebook. But there is a chance you might have not considered the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences awards as part of your betting strategy. And maybe you should. BetIAS is offering odds to win the Oscars for the main categories at this year’s Oscars Award Ceremony.

The 82nd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2009, will be held on Sunday February 7th, 2010 at the Kodak Theatre and hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. The favorites in each of the main categories have been already ruled out and there Money-Line odds to wager on the winner of each of the main categories: best picture of the year, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress.

Here are a couple of pointers. The next blog entry will offer some sort of Academy-Award-Winner’s-handicapping, if you will. But for the sake of order, let’s stick to the basics. First, forget E Entertainment Television, TMZ and US Weekly, with all their pre-Award Ceremony hype and marketing antics: they are good at entertaining and improving audience-ratings not at predicting Oscar Statuette winners. Second, although there is always a chance for an upset, and the Academy has brought out one or two Cinderella Stories before, these awards can turn out to be quite predictable. And that explains the higher odds on some of the picks.

The Sportsbook Industry accuracy in this sort of future events (think US presidential campaign, and recent either political or entertainment futures) has been extremely high. Enough as to make it clear, three weeks before election, that it was Obama and not McCain whom was going to sit at the Oval Office.

The theory that betting markets can offer very accurate predictions about future events is relatively new. The logic behind it says that when an opinion on the outcome of an event is backed by a bettor’s own money, it is more likely to be carefully considered. This means there is a lot of consideration behind the fact that Jeff Bridges has a ML-800 to win Best Actor, while Morgan Freeman and his role in Invictus could comeback with $1500 for every $100 you risk on him. So do a little research, it certainly won’t hurt. You might just make a good profit from the movie industry. I mean, that’s the least it could do to get you back for all the hours you’ve spent at the cinema.

Online Sportsbook Industry leader BetIAS has wagering lines available for the key matches of the opening round. What’s more, we are going to offer lines for the key matchups in every round, with daily updated lines as the brackets starts to fill in.

As if that was not enough, you can wager on the odds to win the whole tournament, or wager on the winner for each of the four brackets or Divisions.

The first round brings up some interesting golf matches. Ian Poulter and Justin Leonard (rotation 7013-14) are facing each other in the first round of the Bobby Jones Division. The two players are coming from a solid performance at the Ryder Cup, and might put out a good show. As of press time, Poulter is the favorite for this matchup at ML-170 with a comeback for Justin Leonard of +130.  This tournament gives a good opportunity to the new, younger players to get their name out in the golfing world.

Two of the most promising young players are going head to head in the first round. Camilo Villegas and Dustin Johnson (rotation 7047-48) are expected to battle for a pass into the second round. Rory McIlroy is not likely to have troubles in the first round. He is ML -260 against big underdog Kevin Na +190 (7025-26), both players put college education on hold to play in the professional circuit this year, and this early year win, could boost them into a great 2010.

Defending Champion Geoff Oglivy is ML-270 against Alexander Noren (7045-7046). This could be the third time that Oglivy takes home the Walter Hagen Cup. Some well-experienced veterans are also going head to head this week. For instance, Jim Furyk is a ML favorite by -185 with a comeback +140 for Scott Verplank in rotation 7049-7050 in our matchups.