Vegas is Smart and Rich
At 7:45pm on Saturday night I sat down and popped in the Oscar Nominated Michael Clayton. The film was not an Oscar Nominated Short, but was rather a feature length film. Clearly, I was not going to be finished by the 8:00pm tip-off for the big Kansas/KState basketball game.
It didn't matter. It wasn't going to be close. I scheduled the Tivo to record it, but I anticipated fast forwarding through most of the game.
There were a lot of reasons for me to doubt that the much-hyped game would be any good. Sure, KState beat KU earlier in the year. But they had a couple of players who had career games that night, they were at home in front of a boisterous (if not offensive) crowd, officiating limited KU's bigs for most of the night, KU didn't shoot well down the stretch. But now we know that KState doesn't play well on the road, and they had lost a number of their previous games. They don't have the coaching or experience to win a road game like this. When they beat KU in 'hattan they pretty much peaked. The fans rushed the court, Beas jumped up on the scorers table like he was MJ winning an NBA Championship, and the team had reached the pinnacle. Too bad it wasn't March yet.
But before I swung by my local McDonald's to rent MC from the omnipresent Redbox, I had to check something. I jumped online and googled the point spread for the game. My guess was that Vegas would favor KU by between 6-8 points. You know what I found?
KU was a 13 point favorite.
Game over. ESPN had done their best to convince everyone that KState was going to march into Allen Fieldhouse and make a game of it. But Vegas knew better. Did they know that the refs would be whistle happy and make a bad call that would put KState's two best players on the bench right away? That particular level of clairvoyance seems to border on voodoo. But nonetheless, they smelled a blowout. And they were daring everyone who saw the ESPN hype machine that morning to bet on KState.
And that, my friends, is why Vegas builds billion dollar casinos. Because 7 minutes into the game, KU was up by 14. They got up by 20 and that's when I started laying on the fast forward button. And while KState cut the lead to 10 points, they lost by 14. Which means Vegas robbed a bunch of people by floating that sucker bet line out there.
For the record, Michael Clayton was far better than that basketball game.
Fair Dinkum
It didn't matter. It wasn't going to be close. I scheduled the Tivo to record it, but I anticipated fast forwarding through most of the game.
There were a lot of reasons for me to doubt that the much-hyped game would be any good. Sure, KState beat KU earlier in the year. But they had a couple of players who had career games that night, they were at home in front of a boisterous (if not offensive) crowd, officiating limited KU's bigs for most of the night, KU didn't shoot well down the stretch. But now we know that KState doesn't play well on the road, and they had lost a number of their previous games. They don't have the coaching or experience to win a road game like this. When they beat KU in 'hattan they pretty much peaked. The fans rushed the court, Beas jumped up on the scorers table like he was MJ winning an NBA Championship, and the team had reached the pinnacle. Too bad it wasn't March yet.
But before I swung by my local McDonald's to rent MC from the omnipresent Redbox, I had to check something. I jumped online and googled the point spread for the game. My guess was that Vegas would favor KU by between 6-8 points. You know what I found?
KU was a 13 point favorite.
Game over. ESPN had done their best to convince everyone that KState was going to march into Allen Fieldhouse and make a game of it. But Vegas knew better. Did they know that the refs would be whistle happy and make a bad call that would put KState's two best players on the bench right away? That particular level of clairvoyance seems to border on voodoo. But nonetheless, they smelled a blowout. And they were daring everyone who saw the ESPN hype machine that morning to bet on KState.
And that, my friends, is why Vegas builds billion dollar casinos. Because 7 minutes into the game, KU was up by 14. They got up by 20 and that's when I started laying on the fast forward button. And while KState cut the lead to 10 points, they lost by 14. Which means Vegas robbed a bunch of people by floating that sucker bet line out there.
For the record, Michael Clayton was far better than that basketball game.
Fair Dinkum