Seton Hall seeks upset of Big East leader Villanova

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/02/2010 - Villanova, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Big East Conference foes collide tonight, as the second-ranked Villanova Wildcats host the Seton Hall Pirates at The Pavilion.

Seton Hall is a solid 12-7 overall, but that record is overshadowed a bit by a 3-5 league mark. The Pirates carried a two-game win streak into last Thursday's matchup with South Florida and were in great position to extend that streak, but the result was a heart-breaking 76-74 overtime loss to the Bulls.

Villanova opened this season with nine consecutive victories before finally falling to Philadelphia-area rival Temple. The Wildcats haven't lost since that setback, as they have ripped off 10 consecutive wins to move to 19-1 overall and 8-0 in league action. The most recent triumph occurred last week over Notre Dame by a 90-72 final, the club's third straight double-digit triumph.

Villanova owns a commanding 60-36 series lead over Seton Hall, which includes seven straight wins over the Pirates.

Jeremy Hazell remains somewhat anonymous to most casual college basketball fans, but the Seton Hall standout is one of the Big East's most productive scorers. Hazell is netting 22.5 ppg and has 37 steals to his credit. Herb Pope is the only other double-digit scorer in the fold, as he checks in with 12.3 ppg and 11.4 rpg. Pope has also blocked 34 shots, over one-third of the team's total. While Seton Hall is generating 82.8 ppg, the team is limiting opponents to 73.6 ppg on 41.6 percent shooting. In the tough loss to USF last time out, Hazell finished with 28 points. Robert Mitchell netted 11 points and Keon Lawrence contributed 10 points for the Pirates, who got 17 rebounds from Pope. Unfortunately, a 25-11 disadvantage in points from the foul line proved costly.

Scottie Reynolds continues to lead Villanova in scoring with 18.7 ppg, as he is one of two players on the roster that has started all 20 games. The other is Corey Fisher, who provides 13.3 ppg and 86 assists. As for Antonio Pena, the third and final double-digit scorer in the fold for the Wildcats, he generates 10.9 ppg and 7.6 rpg. Villanova is racking up 85.2 ppg, and the club is limiting opponents to 70.5 ppg on 39.7 percent shooting. Reynolds and Fisher scored 17 points apiece in the romp over Notre Dame last time out, and Pena provided 14 points and 10 rebounds. The Wildcats led that game by just one point at intermission, but 51.7 percent shooting from the field in the second half and a 15-of-17 effort from the foul line over the final 20 minutes proved to be key.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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