NCAA Takes on Hoops Gambling
By The Sports Curmudgeon
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The gambling paranoids at the NCAA have taken their delusions - which they routinely defend with apparent logic - to new heights this year. I've said before that the NCAA folks have done the right thing in sending some of their folks to Las Vegas to work alongside the sports book managers trying to spot unusual betting patters that might indicate a tournament game that is not "completely pure". That's good; they should do that kind of thing during the college football and college basketball seasons on a regular basis. Kudos to the NCAA for that. But as Stephen A. Smith might say, "How-Evah..."
These same NCAA gambling paranoids went off the deep end about a week ago. According to reports in several papers around the country and on the CBS Evening News, the NCAA has sent a representative, along with someone from the FBI, to speak to each of the teams in the Sweet 16 about the consequences of gambling and participating in gambling, aiding and abetting gamblers, and of course, point shaving. That's good; they only used to do this at the Final Four, but they expanded the coverage this year. That's fine; I have no problem yet.
Here's the paranoia pinnacle... The NCAA also sent a representative along with FBI presence to the Sweet 16 for the women's basketball tournament to give the same admonitions. Either the gambling paranoids there have really gone round the bend or the gambling paranoids had to pay homage to the "gender equality mavens" at the NCAA. When you assess the potential "gambling problem" posed by men's basketball and women's basketball, there is no comparison; the only way you treat these two issues in the same way is if you are looking to manufacture ways to treat it in the same way. Doctors will treat cancer patients with aggressive new techniques that are fresh out of the research phase; they don't do that for athlete's foot.
I didn't know that you could bet on women's games in Las Vegas; I did know that the estimated handle for the men's tournament this year is in the $80M range. Even if you could, I thought that the handle for women's games would be only about 1% of that for the men's games. To try to clear this up in my mind, I asked a journalist in Las Vegas if you could actually bet on women's basketball (including the WNBA). He asked one of the sports book managers out there and here was the reply from the sports book manager:
"Some of us in town actually do book the women's college games. The handle is quite small and saying that it may be 1% of the men's is generous (more like 1/4 to 1/2%). We also book the WNBA which is also a small write."
So, I think this event demonstrates the pecking order within NCAA HQs. The gambling paranoids have to behave the way the ever-so-politically-correct gender equality folks say they have to. If there's an $80M handle on the men's games and a $200K handle on women's games, the two "problems" need to be addressed differently from a prevention standpoint. But you can't do things differently between the men's sports and the women's sports according to PC crowd. So now we know who's in charge...
Having said all that, the tournament games over the weekend were really good. In fact, the games that gave us UCLA and LSU as Final Four combatants demonstrated why the college game is superior to the NBA game. In both contests, there was tenacious defense played for the entire game and by everyone. If an offensive player beat his man off the dribble, there was always help there or about to arrive in short order. No one in either game stood around with a hand on a hip watching the action on the other side of the court. Even before Saturday's games, defense showed its value in college basketball; how do you think BC got into the tournament in the first place?
Watching Memphis struggle with UCLA's defense, I concluded that if Memphis entered its team in the Rucker League - or whatever its equivalent might be in Tennessee - this summer, they'd be the favorites to win because they play that style of basketball and they've had a full season to "perfect" the fly-up-and-down the-court-out-of-control-game. But against a team trying to lock them down on defense, they couldn't manage a point a minute. That is a major feather in UCLA's cap.
At halftime, I thought that Memphis might be choking the game away, but came to realize that UCLA was preventing them from scoring. That got me to thinking, what was - in fact - the biggest gagging in the tournament. I narrowed it down to two events; you make the call:
1. Iowa spitting the bit against Northwestern State.
2. Gonzaga butchering the final five minutes against UCLA.
I lean toward Iowa here but could be convinced otherwise...
By The Sports Curmudgeon
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The gambling paranoids at the NCAA have taken their delusions - which they routinely defend with apparent logic - to new heights this year. I've said before that the NCAA folks have done the right thing in sending some of their folks to Las Vegas to work alongside the sports book managers trying to spot unusual betting patters that might indicate a tournament game that is not "completely pure". That's good; they should do that kind of thing during the college football and college basketball seasons on a regular basis. Kudos to the NCAA for that. But as Stephen A. Smith might say, "How-Evah..."
These same NCAA gambling paranoids went off the deep end about a week ago. According to reports in several papers around the country and on the CBS Evening News, the NCAA has sent a representative, along with someone from the FBI, to speak to each of the teams in the Sweet 16 about the consequences of gambling and participating in gambling, aiding and abetting gamblers, and of course, point shaving. That's good; they only used to do this at the Final Four, but they expanded the coverage this year. That's fine; I have no problem yet.
Here's the paranoia pinnacle... The NCAA also sent a representative along with FBI presence to the Sweet 16 for the women's basketball tournament to give the same admonitions. Either the gambling paranoids there have really gone round the bend or the gambling paranoids had to pay homage to the "gender equality mavens" at the NCAA. When you assess the potential "gambling problem" posed by men's basketball and women's basketball, there is no comparison; the only way you treat these two issues in the same way is if you are looking to manufacture ways to treat it in the same way. Doctors will treat cancer patients with aggressive new techniques that are fresh out of the research phase; they don't do that for athlete's foot.
I didn't know that you could bet on women's games in Las Vegas; I did know that the estimated handle for the men's tournament this year is in the $80M range. Even if you could, I thought that the handle for women's games would be only about 1% of that for the men's games. To try to clear this up in my mind, I asked a journalist in Las Vegas if you could actually bet on women's basketball (including the WNBA). He asked one of the sports book managers out there and here was the reply from the sports book manager:
"Some of us in town actually do book the women's college games. The handle is quite small and saying that it may be 1% of the men's is generous (more like 1/4 to 1/2%). We also book the WNBA which is also a small write."
So, I think this event demonstrates the pecking order within NCAA HQs. The gambling paranoids have to behave the way the ever-so-politically-correct gender equality folks say they have to. If there's an $80M handle on the men's games and a $200K handle on women's games, the two "problems" need to be addressed differently from a prevention standpoint. But you can't do things differently between the men's sports and the women's sports according to PC crowd. So now we know who's in charge...
Having said all that, the tournament games over the weekend were really good. In fact, the games that gave us UCLA and LSU as Final Four combatants demonstrated why the college game is superior to the NBA game. In both contests, there was tenacious defense played for the entire game and by everyone. If an offensive player beat his man off the dribble, there was always help there or about to arrive in short order. No one in either game stood around with a hand on a hip watching the action on the other side of the court. Even before Saturday's games, defense showed its value in college basketball; how do you think BC got into the tournament in the first place?
Watching Memphis struggle with UCLA's defense, I concluded that if Memphis entered its team in the Rucker League - or whatever its equivalent might be in Tennessee - this summer, they'd be the favorites to win because they play that style of basketball and they've had a full season to "perfect" the fly-up-and-down the-court-out-of-control-game. But against a team trying to lock them down on defense, they couldn't manage a point a minute. That is a major feather in UCLA's cap.
At halftime, I thought that Memphis might be choking the game away, but came to realize that UCLA was preventing them from scoring. That got me to thinking, what was - in fact - the biggest gagging in the tournament. I narrowed it down to two events; you make the call:
1. Iowa spitting the bit against Northwestern State.
2. Gonzaga butchering the final five minutes against UCLA.
I lean toward Iowa here but could be convinced otherwise...
