St. John's seeks upset of No. 12 Georgetown

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/12/2012 - Washington, D.C. (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 12th-ranked Georgetown Hoyas will try to bounce back from a recent loss as they play host to the St. John's Red Storm today in a Big East Conference clash at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

This is the longest series in Georgetown history, this being the 97th all-time meeting between the two. St. John's holds a 53-43 series advantage, but the Hoyas have won eight of the last 11 meetings, including a 69-49 decision in their first encounter this season on January 15.

St. John's enters today's contest with a 10-14 overall record and a 4-8 mark in Big East play after suffering a 76-54 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats on Wednesday. The Red Storm have a six-man rotation of all first-year players, so there is certainly room for growth and much-needed improvement. Head coach Steve Lavin has missed a considerable amount of time due to illness, which has put assistant coach Mike Dunlap in charge of the inexperienced roster. The Red Storm have been outscored by an average of 7.1 ppg during league play.

D'Angelo Harrison and Moe Harkless will need to come up big to push the Red Storm past Georgetown today. Harrison leads the team in scoring this season with 16.4 ppg on 38.1 percent shooting from the field and 37.1 percent from beyond the arc. Harkless is close behind, as he carries averages of 15.5 points and a team-high 8.5 rebounds per contest. God'sgift Achiuwa adds 9.7 points and 5.8 rebounds per game to the mix. Harrison was the only player who managed to score in double figures in the lopsided loss to Cincinnati, as he finished with 13 points.

Head coach John Thompson III has led the Hoyas to an 18-5 overall record and an 8-4 mark in Big East action so far. Georgetown lost a close overtime battle to the conference-leading Syracuse Orange its last time out, 64-61, which snapped a two-game win streak. The Hoyas were held to 33.3 percent shooting from the floor, but easily won the rebounding battle (48-30) to keep the game close. Georgetown has outscored its Big East rivals by an average of 4.8 ppg, which is the third-highest scoring differential in the conference at the moment.

Jason Clark averages team-highs of 15.0 points and 1.8 steals per game for the Hoyas, and the senior guard has scored in double figures in three straight outings. Hollis Thompson and Henry Sims are both vital to the Hoyas' success as well, as the former is second on the team with a scoring average of 13.6 ppg. Porter came up big off the bench in the overtime loss to the Orange, as he scored a team-high 13 points.

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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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