Monday Best Bet, Sunday Recaps
Sunday felt strange in the Tuley’s Takes home office. It was the traditional day off between the Saturday Final Four and Monday championship game in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, but had tons of sports betting action with NBA, NHL, MLB and XFL, plus the NCAA Women’s title game.
While MLB and NHL favorites dominated (see full recaps below), there were plenty of dogs still barking on the hardwood with LSU upsetting Iowa in women’s b-ball and a historic day of upsets in the NBA. On just about any other day, the Spurs’ 142-134 OT win at the Kings as 16-point underdogs would have been the biggest sports betting news of the day, but the Blazers (without four starters, including Damian Lillard) rallied from a 12-point deficit to beat the Timberwolves 107-105 as 19.5-point dogs, the biggest point-spread upset in the NBA in nearly 30 years. It was a day of regrets for yours truly, Dave Tuley, as I didn’t have either of those underdogs, nor LSU. I had the right approach as my plays of the day were two other NBA double-digit dogs – the Rockets +11 vs. the Lakers and the Pacers +12.5 at the Cavaliers – but we only split those as the Lakers ran over the Rockets 134-109 while the Pacers held on to cover in a 115-105 loss. I also regretted not giving out the St. Louis Battlehawks +3 at the Houston Roughnecks in their 24-15 upset as I’ve been struggling with the XFL lately, as well as a winning NHL First-Period parlay with the Ducks-Flames and Kings-Canucks. I was happy to hear from some readers who said they went ahead and bet those plays anyway, but I feel like I let down other followers for not “trusting the process” despite our recent slump. I really appreciate that our regulars “get it” that I’m still a journalist first and handicapper second (while trying to bet like a professional with an emphasis on searching for value with underdogs and proper money management), but the fact remains that one of the keys to success in this gambling lifestyle that we all enjoy is how we work through the inevitable losing streaks as they happen to everyone. Anyway, let’s get to the matter at hand with the rest of the recaps of Sunday’s betting action and then get to Monday’ Best Bet (which I already hinted at in yesterday’ column and gave out on “The Greg Peterson Experience” on Sunday night (regular weekly appearance at 11:15 p.m. ET/8:15 p.m. PT, or 15 minutes into archived version) and in the VSiN PRO Best Bets file at VSiN.com.Sunday Recaps
NBA: Faves went 10-3 SU but dogs led 7-6 ATS. The upsets were by the Blazers (+19.5 at Timberwolves), Spurs (+16 at Kings) and Nuggets (+4 vs. Warriors), plus the Pacers (+13 at Cavaliers), Wizards (+11.5 at Knicks), Jazz (+7.5 at Nets) and Mavericks (+3 at Hawks) all covered in losses. Home teams went 8-5 SU but road teams led 9-4 ATS. Overs led 8-5
More NBA: On the season, favorites lead 771-388 SU with 16 games closing pick-'em, but dogs still hold the slimmest of leads at 568-566-25 ATS. Home teams lead 687-488 SU and 588-564-23 ATS (51.1%). In totals wagering, Overs improved slim lead to 587-570-18 (50.7%).