Cashing In

Your "Bad Beat" for Thursday is on:

Youngstown State (plus 4) at Loyola,Chicago.

A hearty runner up to any Wright State backers as the Raiders were up by 11 with 2 minutes to play and could not cover the 5 1/2 thanks to Valparaiso burying some late three's for the backdoor. Maybe Bryce Drew came back for a day?

Also anybody who had the under on the ice from Minnesota should be a little steaming right about now. The Oilers and Wild were scoreless after one period and tied at only one after two. Then four combined goals in the third put it over the 5 1/2 as the Wild won 4-2. Yikes!

But the "Bad Beat" of the day comes from Loyola where the underdog Penguins of Youngstown State built up a 53-45 lead at the half. The visitors had the lead for the bulk of the second half but in unlucky fashion it went to overtime tied at 78.

The Ramblers picked up their play in the extra session doubling up the Pens 14-7 in winning and covering the contest, 92-85.



Your winners for Friday are on:

3* Nets (plus 13) at Boston.

2* Canisius (plus 8) at Niagara.

A small winning 1-1 Thursday as the 3* Hoosiers from Indiana take care of business unlike Georgia Tech who vomited on themselves a few too many times at Cameron.



It's certainly tough to back the 4-44 Nets as they are horrific this season but without Paul Pierce and not exactly playing all that well of late I'll fade the Celtics at this price.

New Jersey may not be winning games but believe it or not they have actually covered four of their last five. Devin Harris is a borderline great point guard and Brook Lopez is no joke in the middle. Throw in a guy in Courtney Lee who was very good in the finals last season for the Magic and I can see the Nets hang here in the end.

Boston is clearly the much better team and I can see Rajon Rondo have another quality game leading the way but Pierce is injured and I just can't imagine the C's being pumped up to play this game after just facing over the past week or so the Lakers, Magic and Hawks.

I can see Doc Rivers' squad go through the motions a bit, get guys some rest and pull out the blah single digit victory.



Niagara is a .500 club that has lost six of their last eight games and just cannot be laying the number that they are. Canisius is probably the inferior team on the court here and are on the road which is never easy but they are without a doubt the right side tonight.

Joe Mihalich' team certainly can score points as they boast four players who score in double figures but the defense has been very sketchy and just last week fell to these same Golden Griffins, 73-70.

The Purple Eagles may get their revenge in terms of the outright but a cover seems very unlikely to me!