Boynton helps Florida down Vanderbilt

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/04/2012 - Gainesville, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kenny Boynton scored 18 points, as No. 12 Florida earned a 73-65 win over No. 25 Vanderbilt in Saturday's hard-fought SEC showdown.

Bradley Beal added 16 points and seven rebounds while Erving Walker finished with 11 points, five boards and five assists for the Gators (19-4, 7-1 SEC), who ran their season-high win streak to seven games. They have won 19 straight at the O'Connell Center.

Jeffery Taylor scored a game-high 25 points for the Commodores (16-7, 5-3). They had won 10 of 11 before dropping their last two. John Jenkins chipped in 15 points and Festus Ezeli had 11.

Florida was up 32-23 with just over three minutes left in the first half, but Vanderbilt closed on an 11-5 run, finishing with back-to-back buckets from Taylor and Jenkins to make it a 37-34 game at the break.

The Commodores carried the momentum out of the locker room, taking a 43-40 lead less than four minutes in behind seven points from Taylor. Florida was still down three, 49-46, when it reeled off 12 straight to go in front.

Beal supplied a pair of treys and a layup during the burst, as the Gators surged ahead, 58-49, with nine minutes remaining. Yet the back-and-forth action would not cease. Vanderbilt replied with a 7-0 push of its own, making it a two-point game on Jenkins' three-pointer.

Florida was still on top, 66-62, in the final minute when Walker penetrated and found an open Boynton for three, stretching the margin to seven. But Taylor answered on the other end with a step-back trey and the Commodores sent Beal to the line with 38 seconds left.

Beal went 2-for-2, making it 71-65, and Brad Tinsley threw the ball away on the Commodores' next possession, sealing their fate. Boynton capped the scoring with two more free throws, as Florida finished 16-of-17 from the stripe.

Game Notes

The Gators' seven-game win streak is their longest since starting the 2009-10 campaign 8-0. They are 13-0 at home this season...Vanderbilt leads the all- time series, 63-60, though the Gators have defeated the Commodores four straight times.

Imustlottto NCAA Basketball Betting News

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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