Bruins cling to Pac-10 title hopes

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/07/2009 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 20th-ranked UCLA Bruins will try to keep their Pac-10 Conference regular season title hopes alive, as they host the Oregon Ducks at Pauley Pavilion this afternoon.

The Bruins enter the day one game behind Washington for first place and a game ahead of California for second at 12-5. With a win today, UCLA would be assured of no worse than a second-place finish, but it could also earn a share of its fourth straight Pac-10 title with a Washington loss to Washington State. The Bruins have won three straight and four of the last five outings, including a 79-54 blasting of Oregon State on Thursday. The triumph was the 15th in 17 home outings, as the Bruins improved to 23-7 overall.

As for Oregon, it assured itself of a last-place finish by dropping the first 14 games of its league schedule. The Ducks ended that drought with back-to- back wins last week, but they were unable to keep things going on Thursday, falling at USC in an 80-66 final. The loss was the ninth straight on the road for the team.

The all-time series between Oregon and UCLA leans heavily in favor of the Bruins, who extended their lead to 80-25 following an 83-74 decision over the Ducks in the first meeting of the season.

The Ducks hung tough early and trailed just 36-35 at the break, but in the second half, they shot a dismal 31.3 percent from the floor in what turned out to be an 80-66 setback at USC on Thursday. Oregon was also outdone at the foul line, where it went just 13-of-20 compared to a 22-of-28 effort by USC. Tajuan Porter guided the team in the defeat with 20 points, but he also accounted for seven of the squad's 13 turnovers. Still, Porter has been one of the few consistent players for Oregon and he is averaging a team-high 15.4 ppg, while shooting 38.6 percent from three-point range and 88.5 percent at the foul line. LeKendric Longmire is the only other player on the team contributing double figures at the moment, with 10.2 ppg.

The Bruins broke an 11-11 tie by outscoring Oregon State 32-8 the rest of the half and they would coasted to the 25-point victory on Thursday. UCLA shot an electric 58.5 percent from the field, including 10-of-19 from long range, and also held a 33-20 advantage on the boards. Josh Shipp was sensational in the win, as he poured in a career-high 27 points and knocked down 5-of-8 buckets from downtown. Nikola Dragovic added 13 points and eight boards, and Darren Collison had 11 caroms and eight assists. Collison was limited to just six points, but he is averaging much better and team-high 14.7 ppg on the season. He is also the engineer of the Bruin attack, dishing off 5.0 apg. Shipp checks in with 13.9 ppg, while Alfred Aboya logs 11.7 ppg and a team-best 5.9 rpg. Overall, UCLA is generating 76.5 ppg behind a nation-best 50.3 percent shooting from the floor.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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