Lessons Learned in the Desert

1.  Follow your strategy- It's easy to maintain a betting strategy sitting at home.  Participating in point spread pools that allow/force you to pick a certain amount of games treat all games equal.  Currently I sit at 28-20 ATS in a pool that picks 3 college and 3 pro games weekly.  That is a darn good winning percentage against the spread.  What happens when you get to Las Vegas?  You want to have action on every game.  The more games you bet, the more the "juice" influences your bankroll.  You are also essentially just flipping a coin.  Lesson Learned: Bet equal amounts on each game.  I already knew this yet refused to stick to my strategy.  If you are increasing your bankroll you may up your bet, but up it for all games.
2.   Check 2nd-Half Over/Under's--With Sunday night's Bears-Vikings game I had a significant amount of my bankroll (the rest of it) on the Bears to cover 2.5 points.  At half time the score was Bears 26 Vikings 3.  I'm always interested in hedging my bet, so I checked the 2nd half line--Vikings -3.  Right away it looks like an incredible play to take the Vikings as 3 point favorites and guarantee myself a push and have over a 20 point window where I could win both.  However, the Bears were dominating the game and the Vikings did only put up a mere 3 points in the 1st half.  I looked at the lines again and saw O/U 20 for the 2nd half.  Even if the Vikings scored all 20 of these points they still wouldn't cover.  This seemed like a better option.  If I were to do it again or have the bankroll to supply it I would consider betting half on the 2nd half.  Lowers the effects of a loss while at the same time bumping up your maximum rake.  Not every game is going to play out like this but over/under 2nd half bets can sometimes give an opportunity to hedge without having to choose one side.

3.  Parlays--I don't ever play them and there is good reason.  They payout and the odds don't match up. Example below.

# of plays	Standard Odds	True Odds
2 plays	13-5	3-1
3 plays	6-1	7-1
4 plays	10-1	15-1
5 plays	20-1	31-1
6 plays	40-1	63-1
7 plays	80-1	127-1

However, I had not thought about parlaying 1st half lines with entire game lines.  Example:  I had Wisconsin -24 in the 1st half and -39 for the game.  If they cover in the 1st half it is certainly looking good for the whole game right?  If you bet 100 units on 1st half and 100 units on 2nd half (200 units on the line) you would have won both and come out ahead 180 units or so after juice.  However if you had put 100 units on a two-part parlay (100 units on the line) you would have won both for a payout of 260 or 160 units ahead.  You win about the same amount while risking half as much.  This is the only type of parlay I will consider because each part is relevant to the other one.  If you bet Game A and Game B they have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  A first half bet and an entire game bet are directly correlated and if the first half covers your chances of the whole game covering go up significantly.

4.  Hassle for drink tickets-- Most people working the cage in the sports book are willing to give in to lowering the minimum bet for a drink ticket.  Better idea--spread your bets out over different windows in order to maximize your drink tickets.  Even better idea--get a seat at a video poker machine directly overlooking the sports book--even more comps at your fingertips.

5.  Stay away from lounges--No matter how cute the waitress is our how "VIP" you might feel the price isn't right!  A basketball game takes two hours, a football game three and half.  I don't know about you but my bankroll doesn't allow me to bet thousands at a time.  Add up 12 dollar cocktails over the course of a three and half hour game?  Your bet is at best a push, at worse a double loss.  Do whatever you can to get the comp's!!!

6.  Hydrate first thing in the morning--It will be the only time all day you will get legit fluids

7.  Don't eat at the buffet at Imperial Palace--Think Griswold Vegas Vacation

8.  Venetian Sports Book--The place to be.  Was under construction this last time and it was definitely missed.  Can't wait for it to be open in March!

Revisiting My 2011 Predictions

I have not got a single one right yet.  As we all know Oregon did not win the BCS National Championship, the Patriots did not beat the Bears in the Super Bowl and ISU fell 3 victories short of the 19 win mark and failed to get out of the first round of the Big XII tournament.  I thought I predicted the NCAA tournament, but it turns out I did not.  My next predictions will not be up for critique until October as they are baseball and college football predictions.  If I get around to it, I may write up some MLB predictions.

Thursdays Games

Overall 20-20-1. Thats as even as it gets but with the juice, I'm down to 721. I missed 12 of these on underdogs. My plan of giving the dogs a little help didn't work out as planned. I'm going to adjust a little and see how that goes for the rest of the conf tournaments.

Utah +15.5
Oregon +8
Virginia Tech -4
Marquette +3.5
TAMU +3
Washington -6

Is Diante Garrett an all-time great Cyclone?

Today, Diante Garrett set the record for most games played for the Cyclones (127), passing Fred Hoiberg, Julius Michalik and Stevie Johnson. His 1327 career points put him ahead of Jeff Hornacek (1313) at 16th all-time. Garrett's 605 career assists put him ahead of Gary Thompson (600) and behind only Jeff Hornacek (665) for second all-time. His 152 steals put him 9th all-time.

These are all big numbers, putting him alongside some players who've had their numbers retired. Is this enough for him to be considered an all-time great? He's played on some of the worst teams ISU has seen in a long time. The coaching staff and surrounding players can be blamed; everyone would agree that Diante has played much, much better this year than ever before. How can we rate him against other Cyclone greats?

It's tough to find a metric that allows for overall comparison. The best one I've found so far is Win Shares provided by sports-reference. The calculation, I'm sure, is difficult but the idea is simple. How much, through offense and defense, does one player contribute to wins? I like this metric for a number of reasons. Really great players have large win shares. Especially in college basketball, one player can make a huge difference. This will be seen with a big win share for a given season. Longevity is rewarded. The best Cyclones have been around for awhile. More years allows more opportunity to grow the career win shares. Finally, great players should play for good to great teams. Win shares are just that, the number of wins dispersed among the players. If a 'great' player were playing for a bad team, maybe that player isn't so great.

Unfortunately, the calculation of win shares takes substantial statistics. Thus, sports-reference only has win shares going back to the 98-99 season for the Cyclones. Still, we can see where Diante fits in over the last 10+ years.

I'm okay with this list. It shows Diante outside the top 10 over the last 13 years or so. The players ahead of him are either great players (Fizer) or good players on great teams (Sullivan, Johnson) and more likely good players on decent teams (Homan, Vroman, Stinson, etc).

I'm okay with Jake Sullivan having the top spot. He was productive for four years for some of the better teams of the past decade. Rashon Clark in the third spot is surprising. He wasn't ever a star but obviously contributed in a number of ways. He's an example of a player contributing consistently to some average teams. That Garrett was only able to accrue half the win shares of Clark is a pretty strong commentary on his legacy. If Garrett was that good, his teams would have been better. If his teams were better, maybe he doesn't start.

Diante has had a nice career, but isn't one of the all-time greats. He survived the roughest stretch of ISU basketball since the early 80's. He's the first player since Rashon Clark (2004-08) to play a full 4 years for Iowa State.

NCAA Tournament Selection Process

I caught this on kenpom.com. It describes the NCAA tournament selection process. It's a lot more democratic than I expected it to be. Committee members who are affiliated with a team participate in the discussion but remove themselves from the voting. Most teams are voted on many, many times before they are selected for the tournament and then again when they are seeded. Here's the write-up on the process:

http://www.midmajority.com/p/1296

It looks like the big names probably have an edge, especially early in the process. The further it goes along, the more it's up to the numbers. How exactly, is up to the individual voter, but conference affiliation or actual game play gets clouded by the numbers. The committee makes extensive use of the following selection sheet:

http://www.bbstate.com/schools/DUKE/sheet

Assuming the committee members are knowledgable about college basketball and don't have unconscious biases, they probably come up with the best tournament possible. Between the last four in and the first four out it's likely a pickem, but it looks like at that point it's so close that one more quality win would be enough to take a team off the bubble. So ultimately, it's up to the team to prove that it belongs.

At the end of the article, the placement of teams is discussed. I still don't like the home-court feel that the top seeds get, but I get that the NCAA wants people to show up to the games without spending a ton of money.

After reading these, there isn't much to argue about with the system. Even if there are biases coming into the selection process, they're likely pounded out of the members over the 5 days. If a team is good enough, it'll make it. If it's on the bubble and makes it, it's lucky. If a team just missed, it should have won another game or two.

thursdays games

yesterday 10-10 this is why you dont pick this many games. overall 19-16. 816 total. 45 on tonights games

USC +3.5
Wash -8
Arizona -14
Seton Hall +3
SCAR +4 PUSH
Indiana +7

wednesdays games

Yesterday 5-3, overall 9-6 total 848 games worth 35

Minnesota +4
Louisville -13.5
Belmont -26
Iowa +11
UAB +4.5
Miami +2
Cinci +5
UCONN +5.5
UMass +8
Richmond -6.5
St Bon +12.5
Charlotte +18
FSU +2.5
Colo +1.5
LSU +14
South Florida +10.5
Clemson +12.5
Kansas -13.5
BYU -10.5
Utah St -7