Robert Morris wins second straight Northeast Conference title

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/10/2010 - Hamden, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Karon Abraham scored 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting, and Robert Morris secured its second straight Northeast Conference Tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament with a thrilling 52-50 win over Quinnipiac.

Abraham added three steals for the second-seeded Colonials (23-11), who won their seventh conference championship in school history. Dallas Green and Russell Johnson each provided nine points in the exciting victory.

James Feldeine scored 17 points to lead the top-seeded Bobcats (23-9), who were denied their first trip to the NCAA Tournament since becoming a Division I program in 1998-99. Justin Rutty contributed 12 points and 10 boards in defeat.

This game was played on Quinnipiac's home floor, where the team had been 14-0 this season entering the game.

Feldeine missed a deep two-point jumper with 51 seconds left that would have tied the game, but instead Robert Morris maintained a 50-48 advantage.

Abraham went to dribble up the court but slipped and was called out of bounds with 19.3 ticks on the clock, giving the Colonials another chance. Feldeine again tried a deep jumper, but the shot was blocked and knocked out of bounds by a Quinnipiac player with 9.3 seconds left.

Green and James Johnson traded a pair of free throws, leading to a trip to the line for Abraham with 2.8 seconds left. Normally an 87 percent free throw shooter, Abraham missed both, but a desperation heave from beyond half court fell well short of the basket.

Quinnipiac put together an 11-0 run over about five minutes in the first half to take a 15-10 lead on a pair of Jeremy Baker free throws, but Robert Morris was able to trim that deficit to 25-23 at halftime.

Neither team held more than a four-point lead at any time in the second half, and that margin last came with 16 minutes left on a Feldeine jumper. Robert Morris went back ahead by three, 44-41, on a Rob Robinson basket with 6:12 to play, but Rutty came back to tie the game at 48-all for the Bobcats on a pair from the line with 1:41 on the clock.

Velton Jones followed with a made shot for the Colonials for a 50-48 contest.

Game Notes

Robert Morris beat seventh-seeded Central Connecticut State in the quarterfinals and third-seeded Mount St. Mary's in the semifinals...Quinnipiac defeated eighth-seeded Monmouth in the quarters and fourth-seeded Long Island in the semis...The Bobcats took the lone season meeting, but Robert Morris leads the all-time series, 15-8...Both teams went 15-3 in conference play during the regular season...By virtue of Quinnipiac's regular season conference title, the Bobcats are guaranteed a bid into the National Invitation Tournament if not selected for the NCAA Tournament.

Wcnbc 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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