Cashing In

Your "Bad Beat" for Sunday is on:

Thunder (minus 13) vs. Minnesota.

This type of a "Bad Beat" is truly not that abnormal in the NBA but for this night it's still the worst I could find.

Kevin Durant looked great once again pouring in 40 points and Oklahoma City was running away with this thing 43-25 after a quarter. By the half the lead was increased to 72-50.

But when laying a Baker's Dozen it's never in the bag until the final whistle and that was the case here.

The terrible Timberwolves battled and behind 22 points from Jonny Flynn did enough to cover this thing in the end. Minnesota outscored Oklahoma City 31-18 in the third and did enough in the final period, despite being down by 14 in the final 90 or so seconds to lose the game by only 8, 116-108.



Your winners for Monday are on:

4* Duke (minus 7 1/2) vs. Butler.

2* Marlins (plus 105) at New York.

An 0-2 Sunday as the Yankees crapped on themselves blowing the 5-1 lead and the Nets stunk from the get go.

It is difficult to lay such a number against such a great defensive team which Butler is and the Bulldogs are pretty much at home which helped them. But with that said Duke is too good of a team right now and way too complete to not win this thing by about 12 or so points in the end.

We all know how good Scheyer, Singler and Smith can be and of late contributions from Zoubek and Thomas and the Plumlee Brothers have been phenomenal signaling a team that is the best in the country right now and a squad that is poised and ready to cut down the nets. I never would have said this a few short weeks ago but I have been sold of late on how much improved Coach K's team is.

Howard and Mack will probably play and the Bulldogs are not going to get blown out like West Virginia did in the national semifinal but after 40 minutes Duke is just too good right now.



No Beltran and no Reyes signals a bad bad Mets team right now. The Marlins aren't going to win the World Series and Johan Santana is still a stud but the fish are the better team right now and Josh Johnson is awesome and quite possibly even better than Santana.

I love Florida's starter today as this guy when healthy is as good as any hurler on this planet. Johnson's numbers are flat out insane and the best player on the field is clearly Hanley Ramirez. Sure David Wright can be awesome and Jason Bay helps out the Mets but Citi Field is a pitchers' ballparka dn we saw how poorly the Mets fared last season thanks to all of their injuries and today in this vast park are going to have problems once again against Johnson.

Florida is just the better everything here today and to not have to lay money with Johnson, even on the road, is a semi steal.

Your "Bad Beat" for Wednesday is on:

Weber State (minus 3 1/2) vs. Montana.

Weber State was the small favorite and had doubled up Montana at the half 40-20. Now let's be honest here this game was over.

Or not.

Anthony Johnson went ballistic and poured in 34 of his game high 42 points for the Grizzlies in the final 20 minutes and the impossible happened. Montana came all the way back and won the game 66-65 to capture the Big Sky title and an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

Oh and by the way Johnson netted his team's final 21 points of the game and broke the tournament record with the 42 points.

Up 20 freakin points, are you kidding me!?!?!?



Your winners for Thursday are on:

4* Georgia Tech (minus 3 1/2) vs. North Carolina.

3* Memphis (minus 6) vs. Houston.

2* Indiana (plus 8) vs. Northwestern.

Yet another winning day on Wednesday as the 4* play on Iowa State came through in the end thanks to a backdoor three with 19 seconds to go. I do have to say thanks for not fouling after that Cyclones, I owe you one!

North Carolina is a team that has shown absolutely nothing for the last two months and even in their home state should continue to show a whole lot of nothing. There is no more disappointing team in all of college basketball this season than the Tar Heels. They do have talent with Ginyard, Zeller and others and a Hall of Fame coach in Roy Williams but it just hasn't mattered. Sure Ed Davis is out but this team was fading away before that injury.

Georgia Tech has not been impressive themselves of late losing five of their last seven and limping into this thing but Paul Hewitt's team is square on that bubble and has to win the game. Derrick Favors is a great Freshman who has continued to improve and will dominate the boards alongside Gani Lawal.

The Yellow Jackets are a desperate team that has been playing better than their fate of late as they lost on buzzer beaters at both Miami and Maryland and is a team with a whole lot of talent and a high ceiling.

Look for the Jackets to look like the team that wants this game more and for them to take care of business going away against a bad team wearing uniforms that say "North Carolina" on them.



Josh Pastner's Memphis Tigers are certainly not the same team in any aspect as John Calipari's Memphis Tigers were but do not belittle this current squad. There is still a bunch of athletes and talented players on this team like Witherspoon, Williams, Sallie, Mack and Kemp and 13-3 in Conference USA is still not too shabby even if it is three more losses than usual.

Houston is a solid team but nothing more. The Cougars last week did beat the Tigers but that was at home, which makes a world of difference, and that will set up a matter of revenge today for Memphis. Plus Houston may have some wobbly legs after the win yesterday over East Carolina and it's never great to play a back-to-back no less against a team that can run the court which Memphis can.

I'm not calling this a 20 point burial but the Tigers in the end will win by double digits as they have everything going for them, everything.



No matter how much better some teams are than others there are certain squad that are not built to be heavy favorites and that is the exact case here with Northwestern.

Tom Crean's Hoosiers are miserable and a team that has pretty much packed it in. But just the other day they were able to muster something and at home beat the Wildcats in overtime. I don't expect that to happen again because John Shurna and the boys from Northwestern are definitely the superior team of these two making me believe that lightning striking twice is unlikely but Northwestern is just not a team that wins games going away, no matter what their opponent is like.

The Hoosiers are going to play the young kids to see what's there going forward andf that turned out to be a pretty good strategy in that last rare win.

Let's also not foget how this game is in Indianapolis which can only be a good thing here in this spot.

Northwestern is probably too good in the end in this revenge spot today but I'm backing the dog and daring the Wildcats to do enough offensively to beat me.