15th-ranked Seminoles set sights on Eagles

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/08/2012 - Chestnut Hill, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 15th-ranked Florida State Seminoles look to remain in first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings tonight as they head to the Conte Forum to take on the Boston College Eagles.

This will be just the ninth meeting between the conference rivals. The series is tied 4-4 as the Seminoles have won three straight to even it up. In last year's meeting, Florida State won 67-51 at the Tucker Center.

The Seminoles have reeled off seven straight wins since losing their conference opener to arrive at a 7-1 mark in conference play, tied with North Carolina atop the standings. Florida State outlasted the nationally ranked Virginia Cavaliers on Saturday and walked away with a 58-55 victory which made its overall record 16-6. Head coach Leonard Hamilton's team was very active on the defensive end of the floor for the second-straight game their last time out, as they forced Virginia into 20 turnovers. The Seminoles have been excellent in league action so far, as they have outscored ACC opponents by an average of 9.2 ppg.

Michael Snaer has been the main ingredient to Florida State's success this season. The junior guard leads the team with 13.8 ppg and has come up huge in big spots. Snaer put the Seminoles on the nation's radar last month with a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer that snapped Duke's impressive 45 game home-winning streak. Bernard James is a very good contributor for Florida State as well, as he averages 10.2 points and a team-high 8.6 rebounds per game. Okara White and Xavier Gibson get into the mix on a regular basis as well.

The Eagles hope a return home will help, as they are riding a six-game losing streak into this one after they fell 51-47 to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday. The loss to Georgia Tech made Boston College 7-16 overall and 2-7 in league play. The Eagles were held to 34.7 percent shooting from the floor as they were held under 60 points for the fifth-straight game. Boston College has the lowest scoring offense in ACC play as it averages just 55.4 ppg. Conference opponents have managed to score 66.1 ppg against BC. The Eagles are last in the league in rebounding margin, as they are being beat on the boards by an average of 5.2 rpg.

Boston College lacks a standout player that many of its ACC rivals possess. Matt Humphrey's 10.1 points per game, which is not in the top 25 in the conference, is the highest on the team. Humphrey has scored 15 points in each of his last two outings. Lonnie Jackson added 10 points in each of the same contests. Ryan Anderson contributes 9.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per game while Patrick Heckmann nets 9.1 ppg. Dennis Clifford has been a decent man in the middle with averages of 9.3 points and 5.1 boards per game. Heckmann, Jackson, Anderson, and Clifford are all freshmen.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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