Friday Best Bets, Thursday Recaps
Thursday was a roller-coaster of emotions in the Tuley’s Takes home office with our sports betting action and we ended up pretty much breaking even.
I was running around doing some errands and also had my second guitar lesson during the early afternoon. I was also following my tennis bet on Tomas Martin Etcheverry +135 vs. Francisco Cerundolo that I picked up from VSiN colleague Gill Alexander on “A Numbers Game.” As I think most of my readers understand, I mostly rely on my own handicapping, but I’m a firm believer that “we’re all in this together” in trying to beat the books, so I’m not above getting input from other handicappers either from our show or the VSiN.com Best Bets page, especially in the sports I don’t follow closely. Etcheverry won the first set 6-3 against his fellow Argentine, lost the second set 6-3, but then prevailed again by 6-3 to win the match at a decent price. Then, after getting home, I enjoyed watching my Best Bet of the day as the Spurs came through as a big swagger play (after snapping their long 16-game losing streak on Tuesday) vs. the Pacers. It also wasn’t easy as Indiana led 29-21 after the first quarter, but the Spurs cut it to 2 by halftime and took over in the third quarter and coasted to the 110-99 outright upset as 4.5-point home underdogs. My other two plays of the day were also back-and-forth affairs that didn’t go my way. Lipscomb (+4.5) fell behind early in its Atlantic Sun semifinal match at Kennesaw State, then rallied in the second half to get within the number and still trailed only 74-71 with 1:33 left, but then didn’t score the rest of the way to lose 80-71 and fail to cover. Meanwhile, our NHL 1P Over parlay was looking great as we hit our first leg with the Kraken and Red Wings trading goals in the first 3:07 of their game, then the Flames scored a short-handed goal just 2:32 into their game vs. the Maple Leafs, but the two teams were scoreless the rest of the opening period. Let’s recap the rest of Thursday’s (full-game) action in the major team sports and then look for more Best Bets for Friday. Note: I can’t remember the last time it was so hard to find a play as we have relatively short cards in the NBA, NHL and college basketball compared to what we’ve had all week and will have again over the weekend.Thursday Recaps
CBB: No. 5 Purdue beat Wisconsin 63-61 but didn’t cover as 3.5-point road favorite. No. 1 Houston (-17 vs. Wichita State) pushed vs. consensus closing number in 83-66 win. No. 4 UCLA (-11 vs. Arizona State) and No. 8 Arizona (-2.5 at USC) covered in their wins.