Tag: winners circle

5 bets to avoid during the 2023 NCAA men’s basketball tournament

A few pitfalls for bettors to avoid over the next few weeks.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

It’s the day after Selection Sunday, a wonderful time of year for bettors. So many games and teams to choose from.

We only have a day to figure out our favorite tournament bets before the First Four begins, but don’t be in such a rush that you fall into avoidable traps. There’s action that simply isn’t worth your time or attention.

To narrow down your betting options, I browsed the worldwide web for some trends to take heed to while betting on the NCAA tournament. These are the bets I would avoid:

Chalk throughout

This is self-explanatory and really doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway. Don’t just bet on all higher seeds to win. Upsets will happen, and that actually starts with the First Four teams.

In all but one year of the First Four, at least one of the at-large teams has advanced to the second round. So expect one of Pittsburgh, Mississippi State, Nevada or Arizona State to come through on the moneyline against a 6-seed.

A top-4 seed will also lose in the first round if past years are an indication, but picking which of the 13- to 16-seed moneylines to tail is a little trickier.

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A 15 over a 2

This is one upset you might be inclined to take because it’s happened once each of the past two years. But it’s actually not all that common. Before Saint Peter’s rode a win over Kentucky to a deep 2022 run and Oral Roberts beat Ohio State in 2021, a 15-seed hadn’t beat a 2 since 2016.

Before that, it had only happened seven other times in tournament history. This year, I’m expecting Arizona, Texas, Marquette and UCLA to all safely advance to at least the second round.

Public bets against the spread

According to Action Network, tournament teams that receive 60 percent or more bets against the spread have a 41.2 percent winning percentage ATS since 2016.

Simply put, when the public is incredibly convinced a team is going to cover, that team probably isn’t going to cover.

Longshot futures

Since tournament seeding began in 1978, only four teams with odds longer than 20-1 have won the title, with UConn in 2014 being the longest at 100-1.

That narrow’s this year’s field considerably if the trend holds. Only 10 teams have odds shorter than 20-1 at BetMGM: Houston (+550), Kansas (+800), Alabama (+800), Purdue (+1100), UCLA (+1200), Arizona (+1200), Texas (+1600), UConn (+1600), Gonzaga (+1800) and Baylor (+1800).

This stat also makes sense when you consider no team seeded higher than No. 8 has ever won the tournament.

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1-seed upsets

The teams that end up as 1 seeds got there for a reason. This year, that’s Alabama, Houston, Purdue and Kansas. Let’s not go betting on upsets over No. 1s just for the sake of it.

These teams will always be your safest bets to not only win each round, but also win the entire tournament. Since 1985, 24 of the 37 national champions have been 1 seeds — including 12 of the past 15 winners.

That’s not to say every 1 seed will advance to the Final Four; 2008 is the only year where each Final Four team was a 1-seed — like I said, avoid chalk. But there’s a pretty good chance one of the four top-line teams will end up as the last standing.

And that’s it from me. Happy March!

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Giannis Antetokounmpo notched a triple-double after an intentional miss, but the NBA should reverse his cheap ‘rebound’

Nice try, Giannis. But that’s not a real rebound.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

Update: The NBA rescinded Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 10th rebound after this was originally published.

With the clock winding down on a win for the Milwaukee Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo softly threw the basketball off the rim and caught his own “missed shot” for rebound No. 10 of the game.

The move officially gave him a triple-double on the night and is predictably drawing a strong response from people on social media who find his stat-padding to be cheap and unbecoming of an NBA player. Let us not forget how bad former Cavaliers guard Ricky Davis was ripped for a failed attempt at something similar in 2003 — or the Hawks’ Bob Sura a year after that.

However, where Antetokounmpo will find support for the move where those before him couldn’t at the time is from a flourishing community of legal sports bettors, some of whom needed that 10th rebound for a payday.

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“I was thinking about scoring the ball, but I feel like in those situations it’s best to kind of keep the ball,” Antetokounmpo said after the game. “But yeah, I just try to play the game smart and kind of stole one.”

Whether intentional or not, Antetokounmpo made himself a man of the people — the wagering type. As such, he didn’t likely leave many happy people on the side of sportsbooks — and by extension the NBA. Which will make it very interesting to see how the league handles this.

Both Davis and Sura had their 10th rebounds wiped out by the NBA of David Stern’s reign as commissioner. Davis because his shot attempt was at his own rim, which violated NBA rules and actually got him fined by his own team. Sura because the NBA didn’t consider his shot to be a genuine attempt at making a field goal.

The league could make the same ruling Monday, and it should.

Look, on its face, I don’t care about what Antetokounmpo did. After all, he put himself in position to notch the triple-double by playing hard for a win the entire game, recording 23 points and 13 assists. That’s what allowed him to dribble out the clock and get a cheap rebound in the end.

However, sports betting introduces an ethical component that the league would be wise to get in front of to make sure these things don’t become more rampant and happen in less ideal moments. Too many people are paying attention for a precedent to be set that players can blatantly pad stats. On the other end of people who bet the over on Antetokounmpo’s rebounds are people who took the under.

Sports betting aside, it’s just bad optics for the NBA. Players can care about their individual stats while still wanting to win — and most probably do — but the league doesn’t want it to be so obvious. Also, let’s be real, that’s not a rebound.

Antetokounmpo doesn’t need to be lambasted or fined or anything. I appreciate the attempt. Nice try buddy. But that extra rebound shouldn’t stand.

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Jake Paul told people ‘bet the mortgage’ on his fight, then made the dumbest excuse when he lost

76% of the public money was riding on Paul.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

For the first time in his short boxing career, Jake Paul took an L.

The YouTube star lost to Tommy Fury by split decision Sunday in a mini upset according to oddsmakers who had Paul as a slight favorite despite his limited experience.

There won’t be any shame for Paul losing a close fight to the half-brother of world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury who entered the ring with an undefeated record of his own. But Paul (6-1) should be ashamed of the excuses he made for why he lost to Fury (9-0).

Especially after telling everyone to “bet the mortgage” on a fourth-round knockout.

I hope no-one actually followed through on that advice, because not only did Paul lose as the -125 favorite, he revealed after the fight several ailments he battled during camp.

“Honestly, I felt flat. I got sick really bad twice in this camp, injured my arm. So, it wasn’t my best performance,” Paul said. “But I lost. I’m not making excuses, I’m just saying it wasn’t my best performance. I felt a little flat.”

I don’t know, Jake. Those sound exactly like excuses to me. Very bad excuses that, if true, were probably worth considering before telling people to bet large sums of money.

I understand part of being a great boxer is being a great salesman, and Paul has the latter part mastered. He even made his own bet during the heated pre-fight press conference to double Fury’s earnings with a win.

But Paul isn’t your typical boxer. Paul is the owner of a sports betting platform called Betr, and he has considerable sway with a young audience that might just bet on something because he says so. That was a point of contention during his awkward interview with Bomani Jones.

Boxers are supposed to project confidence, but Paul’s very specific choice of betting terminology seemed intentional — and irresponsible. We’ll never know just how much his bold prediction played into the final betting stats, but the public hammered his odds at BetMGM. A whopping 76% of the money wagered on the fight was on Paul, and 57% of the bets.

Paul’s brother Logan even joined in on the bold betting talk, saying he’d bet his equity in Prime (energy drinks) on Jake getting a win.

Rapper Drake, who might be more friend than fan of Paul, actually did bet the equivalent of a mortgage — on a very nice home — losing $400,000 on Paul.

And they weren’t the only influencers peddling confidence in Fury through a sports betting lens.

In the end, everyone lost except Fury.

But even in taking an L, Paul comes out a winner because he earned two very good pay days: the one on Sunday and the inevitable rematch down the road. Hopefully, the public doesn’t fall for the shenanigans next time.

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The Nets’ unprecedented sweep is the latest blow to player empowerment

Brooklyn was the preseason betting favorite to win the title.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes. Here, you’ll read about stats and trends that can help you make informed betting predictions for the week ahead and beyond. Got something you want to see in the next Winners Circle, shoot Prince a message and check back next week for the response.

There used to be a time we thought having a couple of superstar players on your team at least guaranteed competitiveness — a chance to win a playoff series and potentially push for a title.

That idea took a hit Monday with the Boston Celtics’ sweep of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets. While Boston has a couple of budding superstars itself, the team as a whole is a lot more carefully constructed than Brooklyn. And that showed up on the court — only Game 1 felt as close as the final score suggested.

This is a byproduct of the player empowerment era, which I’m not completely against. But which also has an obvious downside when it comes to team construction: players ain’t GMs.

I can’t be sure exactly how much input Durant and Irving had on building this incredibly flawed roster — Durant says he doesn’t overstep at all — but it’s clear they have some influence. Irving expressed as much after Monday’s loss, stating his desire to remain in Brooklyn and help manage the franchise with Durant, team owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks.

Eh, good luck with that, guys.

Whatever the players’ influence, the way they’re doing this now hasn’t worked. Brooklyn looked promising on paper, entering the season as the preseason betting favorite to win this year’s title. But that seems a popular trap of the player-GM if we’re to believe LeBron played a role in the Lakers acquiring Russell Westbrook. The move maybe looked good on paper but completely ignored the reality of a clunky fit.

The sweep of Brooklyn’s paper team followed a rocky season which saw another of the team’s stars, James Harden force his way off the roster after Durant apparently pushed to get him there. In acquiring Harden, the Nets had to part with some of their best young players. In trading him, they got back a different flawed All-Star who didn’t play a single minute after the deal.

If this is all the result of players having an oversized role in managing a franchise, count me out on this. We saw the experiment work for a season in Los Angeles when they traded a bunch of young talent for Anthony Davis and won a title for it. But then it went terribly wrong this season, as LeBron and company inexplicably missed the playoffs with the second-best preseason title odds. The team with the best odds just became the first preseason favorite since at least 1984-85 to not win a single playoff game, according to historical odds on Basketball-Reference.

Over the years, teams that won titles have more often than not been teams whose cores were built organically, whether through the draft or through tactical front office decisions. Only LeBron’s teams have been able to occasionally buck that trend. Even if Durant doesn’t dictate the front office decisions, he at the very least chose Irving as his co-pilot, and that’s presented its own set of circumstances.

I do believe star players should have some type of pull in roster construction, because they’re the ones who ultimately have to drive the ship on the court. But strong front offices are still vital to a team’s success. If that balance isn’t appropriately managed, what happened to the Nets and Lakers this season might become more normal. Next time, it won’t be such a surprise to see one of the game’s giants swept in the first round, or miss the postseason altogether.

Here are a few more things I’m looking at in the week ahead.

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Winner’s Circle: Bet on Tiger Woods to win the Masters, because why not?

If Tiger plays, we win. And if he wins, we win even more.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes. Here, you’ll read about stats and trends that can help you make informed betting predictions for the week ahead and beyond. Got something you want to see in the next Winners Circle, shoot Prince a message and check back next week for the response.

March Madness was another one for the books, but it’s finally over with the South Carolina women capping their wire-to-wire No. 1 season with a championship and Kansas completing an unbelievable comeback to top North Carolina on the men’s side.

That result might have been a little different if UNC big Armando Bacot were healthy, but he still had a monster impact. And UNC didn’t walk away completely empty handed. They won something like a national championship their previous game, upsetting rival Duke to retire coach Mike Krzyzewski — a result we probably should’ve seen coming.

The NBA’s MVP race continues to be a thrilling ride, as Nikola Jokic has pulled ahead of Joel Embiid as the betting favorite. Most likely feeling the tide shift while he’s still to play at an elite level, Embiid questioned what more he needs to do to prove himself worthy.

In other NBA news, the Utah Jazz continue to gain big leads and blow them. Not only is it a reason they remain tough to trust as the playoffs near, it’s also why they’ve failed to cover a spread in seven straight games, according to Covers.

Finally, the draw for the World Cup was last week and while +10000 odds on the USA to win would make for a nice payout, that’s probably not going to happen.

Here are a few more things I’m looking at in the week ahead.

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Winner’s Circle: Can conference tournament success help predict the Final Four?

Is conference tournament success somehow related to the Final Four?

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes. Here, you’ll read about stats and trends that can help you make informed betting predictions for the week ahead and beyond. Got something you want to see in the next Winners Circle, shoot Prince a message and check back next week for the response.

Last week ended with a bang, and I’m not talking about the bracket reveals on Selection Sunday. Just when we — or maybe just some of us — thought we had seen the last of Tom Brady, the GOAT decided retirement wasn’t a life he could enjoy yet and announced his return to the NFL. With Brady back under center, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are once again among the title favorites for the 2022 NFL season.

Brady successfully diverted attention away from March Madness, but not before the entire men’s tournament field was announced. Arizona, Baylor, Gonzaga and Kansas all landed No. 1 seeds, but Kentucky also has top-four odds to cut down the nets when it’s all over. Here’s a guide to betting the first four games, which get started Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the NFL’s new league year will begin and free agents can officially sign with teams. We’ve already seen some splash moves this offseason with the trades of Russell Wilson and Khalil Mack, and Aaron Rodgers’ return to Green Bay. Now, the names on the free agent market will have a chance to land somewhere and teams like the Las Vegas Raiders, who have the longest betting odds to win their division, will have a chance to play catch up.

Here are a few more things I’m looking at in the week ahead.

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