Butler next to try and knock off top-seeded Gators

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/23/2007 - St. Louis. MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It has been 15 years since the NCAA Tournament had a school win back-to-back titles, but the Florida Gators are on their way to taking care of that issue as they suit up against the Butler Bulldogs in the Sweet 16 round of the 69th annual event from the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis tonight.

The top-seeded Gators ran through the field a year ago and defeated UCLA by a score of 73-57 to capture the crown and are hoping to repeat the feat here in 2007. After winning the SEC Tournament for the third straight time, the Gators picked up where they left off last season by opening this year's tournament with a crushing 112-69 victory against Jackson State that set a record for the largest margin of victory in tournament history. Two days later Florida, which has now won 14 consecutive postseason outings, played a much closer contest versus Purdue in a 74-67 decision in New Orleans.

As for the fifth-seeded Bulldogs, the Midwest Region has provided matchups with Old Dominion in the first round and Maryland in the second. Butler, a team that lost in the title game of the Horizon League Tournament this year, could have easily lost to both previous opponents in this tournament, but with a 57-46 triumph against the Monarchs and a narrow 62-59 win versus the Terps in Buffalo last week the Bulldogs pushed their all-time NCAA Tournament record to 7-6 as they prepare for their toughest test of the season.

With respect to the all-time series between these two schools on the hardwood, Florida won the only previous meeting with a memorable 69-68 victory in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament. That year, head coach Billy Donovan got his Gators to the championship game versus Michigan State before feeling the sting of an 89-76 setback.

The winner of this meeting will be back in action on Sunday versus the winner of the UNLV/Oregon contest for the right to move on to the Final Four in Atlanta.

Defense was the name of the game for the Bulldogs as they clamped down on Maryland, holding top performer D.J. Strawberry without a single point in the first half and a just eight points for the game. The Terps managed to finish the contest shooting 6-of-11 behind the three-point line, but a mere 7-of-15 effort at the charity stripe and 17 turnovers were just what the Bulldogs were hoping for as they moved to the Sweet 16 for the second time in school history. A.J. Graves responded with a team-high 19 points for Butler, converting 4-of-9 chances behind the three-point line, while Brandon Crone made good on 3-of-7 opportunities beyond the arc to come away with 13 points. Of the team's 52 field goal attempts, half came from behind the three-point line where the squad hit on 46.2 percent.

All season long the Bulldogs have turned to their defense to get the job done, and it has rarely failed them, ranking fifth in the nation with just 56.9 ppg allowed. Oddly enough, even though Butler found a way to stifle opponents, it still ranked just 300th in the country in blocked shots with less than two per game. Graves, the leading scorer for the group with his 17.0 ppg, is as close to perfect at the free-throw line (.958) as one can get, ranking second in the nation this season with his accuracy. Mike Green (14.1 ppg) takes care of getting the rest of the team involved with his 133 assists and is also first on the glass for the squad with close to six rebounds per game, while Crone accounts for 11.4 ppg, despite his mere 40.8 percent shooting from the floor.

Beating up Jackson State didn't prove much in the first round, as the Gators quickly learned versus Purdue in a much tighter matchup last weekend. Florida actually trailed by a bucket at the break, 31-29, but then the experience of the Gators took over as both Corey Brewer and Al Horford both recorded a team- high 17 points in the seven-point victory. Taurean Green chipped in with 14 points and Joakim Noah another nine as he also tied Horford for the rebounding lead with nine boards. Although he tallied a mere six points in 32 minutes of action, fellow starter Lee Humphrey did manage to knock down a couple of three- pointers to extend his school-record of hitting at least one trey per game to 35 straight. The team wound up shooting an even 50 percent from the field and outscored the Boilermakers at the charity stripe, 27-6, which helped to make up for 15 turnovers.

A perfect 6-0 in the month of March, the Gators have outscored opponents by an average of more than 20 ppg during the stretch, although a huge part of that was the crushing defeat of Jackson State in the first round of the tourney. Again, thanks to the win versus the Tigers, Horford is averaging a double-double in the two tourney games with 16 ppg and 12.5 rpg, shooting an incredible 76.5 percent from the field. For the season overall those numbers are slightly lower at 13.3 ppg and 9.3 rpg, but they were still tops on the program. With he and Noah (12.1 ppg, 8.3 rpg) are both shooting close to 62 percent from the field, the team as a whole is first in the nation with its 52.9 percent accuracy and is also fourth in the country in terms of rebounding margin with a +8.2 rpg.

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College Football Betting Tips From a Pro

While the NFL is the sport wagered on the heaviest, college football betting lines has become more and more popular as people realize it’s a game that can be beat. The NCAA football season gets longer each year with the addition of numerous bowl games and with that comes more opportunities for more money in your pocket, if handled correctly.

Betting on college football is not the same as with the NFL, so make sure you separate the two. Because of the vast number of teams, the parity between college football programs is slight and thus, you are going to see some high numbers in the NCAA. Teams favored by more than 40 points are not uncommon especially early in the season when teams playing their non-conference schedules.

The best advice when trying to tackle these enormous spreads and is to just stay away. A team that is favored by 40 points is favored by that many for a reason while teams getting 40 points are bad enough that they shouldn’t be touched. Set yourself a spread limit. Getting rid of these games will cut down on the number of contests that you need to handicap while staying away from backdoor or front-door covers.

What is a backdoor and front-door cover you ask? A backdoor cover is a team that is getting beat by more than the spread, but scores late to get within that number thus covering the spread. A front-door cover is just the opposite where the favorite scores late and covers the number they are favored by.

These front-door and backdoor covers are common when second and third string players enter games in college football and it can be the worst nightmare for some bettors. These players can also be your best friend, but ask any bettor and he will give you more instances on losing in this situation than winning. It just seems to work out that way even though everything evens out in the end.

College football betting has some of the softest lines of any sport and it’s being able to find these lines that will make you a successful college football handicapper. The NFL and NBA have the tightest lines around and while those sports can be beat by looking at situations and systems, college football doesn’t quite work that way. It’s much more manual, but when done correctly, it’s much more gratifying as well.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of college football means looking at the many stats in order to beat the number. As opposed to pro football, college football is less dependent on situations and angles and more on certain statistics. Rushing offense and defense, pass efficiency offense and defense and turnover margins are huge. These are vital in the NFL, but even more so when it comes to college football.

Being able to run the ball in college football has always been a key factor in the overall success of a team. The same adage also goes for teams who have the ability to stop the run. Putting these two factors together can produce some positive results in a team’s record both straight up and against the spread. These numbers show huge differences in teams and the spread may not take those into effect, which is where the value comes into play.

Passing yardage numbers both for and against can be a misinterpreted statistic. However, pass efficiency has always been one of the best ways to look at a teams’ passing game ability both offensively and defensively. But is it really a true indication of how they perform? I wouldn’t say so since they are raw passing numbers with nothing else taken into consideration.

I use pass efficiency ratings when doing my handicapping but I adjust my numbers based on a number of factors including power ratings, strength of schedules, personnel and injuries. This gives a much better picture of a team’s ability to pass effectively and also being able to defend the pass. Tweaking pass efficiency stats instead of raw passing yards is the key.

Turnovers are the single most frustrating, and at times the most gratifying, aspect of a college football lines, mostly because they are so unpredictable. They are part of the game and most of the time nothing can be done to control them. However, turnovers are contagious and they can carry over from game to game and season to season.

It’s important to know how to forecast these unforeseen events and how to use them to your advantage. You can find ways to give yourself an edge by looking at past histories of teams and coaches and how they have fared in turnover wars in the past. Instead of turnovers hurting you at the wrong times, find ways to use them to your advantage.

As you can see, college football handicapping is very labor intensive and isn’t just based on where teams are ranked in the AP and coaches polls. Experience, coaching and match-ups are all important since unlike the NFL, college teams turn over much more often with new personnel at most positions every single year. Keeping current on this information is vital.

Betting NCAA football can be lucrative if done correctly, but more importantly, it’s just plain enjoyable because it can be beat. College football is one of the best sports to watch with some of the best rivalries taking place in all of sports. The only downfall is that a championship isn’t decided on the field but on a computer-based system that is the Bowl Championship Series. That will change someday and we will all be better off for it.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your NCAA college football betting needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.