Tuesday Best Bets, Monday recaps
Monday was one of the most surreal days we can recall ever having in the Tuley’s Takes home office. We had bowl games during the day – a nice bonus – capped by the Rose Bowl, then Donovan Mitchell scoring 71 points in the NBA and No. 1 Purdue being upset in CBB, any one of which would usually be the No. 1 news story of the day. But it was all overshadowed by the Monday Night Football game getting postponed.
Personally, I was watching the Bills-Bengals game while cooking a tri-tip on the grill and was shocked like everyone else to see Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin collapse after making what looked like a routine tackle. It’s fairly common to see a football game interrupted by an injury and even seeing players carted off with serious injuries, but this was different as we don’t often see an ambulance go on the field and hear about a player actually receiving CPR. It was later learned that Hamlin went into cardiac arrest. The games was postponed just after 10 p.m. ET. I always do a Monday Night Football recap at VSiN.com, but I certainly didn’t expect to be doing it so early (7 p.m. Vegas Time) and about a game that didn’t even get through the first quarter. It seems silly to talk about our bets after something like this, but this is what we do. My Best Bet of the day on Bengals +7.5/Under 55.5 points was graded no-action (we split our leans with a loss on Purdue 15.5 and a win on Penn State +1.5), so I wish I had used Penn State as my top play, Anyway, the canceled wager ended a 66-day run of daily Best Bets that went 40-24-2 ATS (62.5%) since late October. Let’s get to the rest of the Monday recaps, then take a peek into Contest Corner (including the ramifications of the MNF postponement in the Circa Sports Million and Westgate SuperContest). We’ll then give our Tuesday Best Bet as well as our early NFL Week 18 and CFB Championship Game picks.Monday Recaps
CFB: Penn State (closed -1.5) routed Utah 35-21 in the Rose Bowl to complete the bowl season (game went just Over the betting total of 55 points). Faves went 3-1 SU and ATS on Monday. Overs led 3-1. Faves finished 26-16 overall in bowl season, but dogs still led 25-16-1 ATS (61%). Unders dipped to finish 22-19-1 (53.7%).
More CFB: Earlier, Mississippi State beat Illinois 19-10 in the Reliaquest Bowl, pulling off a miracle cover after closing as 3.5-point favorites on a scoop-and-score on an Illinois desperation lateral play on the final play of the game after leading by 3 on a field goal with :04 left (game still stayed Under 46.5 points). No. 16 Tulane rallied to upset No. 10 USC 46-45 in the Cotton Bowl after closing as a 1.5-point underdog (flew Over 66.5). LSU easily covered as 15.5-point fave in 63-7 rout of Purdue in the Citrus Bowl (went Over 54.5).
CBB: Rutgers upset No. 1 Purdue 65-64 Monday night as a 8.5-point road underdog and +320 on the money line with a high of +345 at Circa Sports (stayed Under betting total of 131 points).