Volunteers vault past LSU into SEC quarterfinals

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/11/2010 - Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Wayne Chism had 17 points and 10 rebounds as 15th-ranked Tennessee downed LSU, 59-49, in the first round of the SEC Tournament.

Bobby Maze had 14 points and J.P. Prince added 11 points for the Volunteers (24-7), who will play Ole Miss in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Storm Warren had 18 points and six rebounds and Tasmin Mitchell added 10 points and seven boards for the Tigers (11-20), who dropped three of their last four games of a season that saw a 12-game losing streak.

With the score tied at 30 early in the second half, the Vols got eight straight points as Melvin Goins' jumper capped the run for a 38-30 lead with a bit over 11 minutes to play.

A few minutes later, a Chism three-ball followed by a Prince slam gave Tennessee a 46-34 lead with 6 1/2 minutes to play.

Back-to-back Mitchell three-pointers, that were sandwiched by a pair from the line by Maze, got LSU back to within five points, 54-49, with just over a minute to play.

Tennessee, though, turned to Maze, who hit a steady stream of free throws over the final minute to seal the win.

It was a poor shooting display at both ends of the court in the first half as LSU hit just 35.7 percent of its shots while Tennessee was a miserable 25.9 percent from the floor.

The largest lead of the first half was seven by LSU when Eddie Ludwig put in a layup with about five minutes to go to up, 17-10.

A bit later, Brian Williams turned a three-point play when he was fouled draining a jumper and Chism hit 1-of-2 from the line in the closing moments of the half to make it 21-all at the break.

Game Notes

Tennessee owns a 58-42 advantage in the all-time series...Ludwig finished with eight points and six boards in the loss...Tennessee finished the game shooting 37.3 percent while LSU made 36.4 percent of its shots.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.