Alabama visits Kentucky in SEC action

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/09/2010 - Lexington, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Alabama Crimson Tide invade Rupp Arena this evening for an SEC clash with the third-ranked Kentucky Wildcats.

Alabama is a respectable 13-10 overall, but that record is overshadowed by a 3-6 mark versus league opponents. The Crimson Tide have suffered three consecutive defeats, including a 74-67 setback at Ole Miss on Saturday. The two previous losses to Auburn and Florida both came by one point.

Kentucky opened this season with 19 consecutive wins before finally tasting defeat against South Carolina in late January. Since that setback, the Wildcats have recorded three consecutive victories, the most recent of which came on Saturday over LSU in an 81-55 final. Coach John Calipari's club is now 7-1 in SEC action and carries a 14-0 home record into this evening's affair.

The Wildcats own a commanding 98-35 series advantage over the Crimson Tide, which includes wins in the last two meetings.

The Crimson Tide depend heavily on the duo of Mikhail Torrance and JaMychal Green to be productive at the offensive each time out. Torrance leads the club with 15.3 ppg and 128 assists. As for Green, he provides 14.7 ppg, 7.1 rpg and 47 blocks while shooting 51.2 percent from the floor. Alabama is generating 68.2 ppg while limiting opponents to 62.9 ppg on 41.5 percent field goal efficiency. In the seven-point loss to Ole Miss on Saturday, Green scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while Tony Mitchell netted 16 points. Torrance finished with 12 points and seven assists for the Tide, who committed twice as many turnovers as the Rebels and were outscored 25-13 from the foul line. The negatives clearly overshadowed 50 percent shooting from the floor.

For much of this season, Kentucky freshman John Wall has been hyped as the best player on the Wildcats roster and perhaps the top performer in all of college basketball. Recently, however, fellow rookie DeMarcus Cousins has emerged as the true standout on a loaded Kentucky team. Cousins has paced the squad in both scoring and rebounding in four consecutive games and is now averaging the same amount of points as Wall (16.4 ppg). The big man is shooting 54.2 percent from the field and grabbing 10.0 rpg, while Wall, a point guard, has dished out 146 assists to complement 41 steals. Patrick Patterson provides 15.1 ppg for the Wildcats, who are generating 82.3 ppg while surrendering 65.9 ppg on 38.1 percent shooting by opponents. In the romp over LSU on Saturday, Cousins racked up 19 points and 13 rebounds. Patterson added 16 points, while Wall struggled his way to six points.

Cbssporysline NCAA Basketball Betting News

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.

Football Betting Sportsbook Accepts Credit Cards

Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.

As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.

Bet 2010 Super Bowl Odds

The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.

Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).

But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.

Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.

Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:

Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1

Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2

New York Giants - 9 - 2

Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).

Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.

So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.

And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.

They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.

Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.

But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.

Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.

Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.

Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.

Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?

Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.

In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.

Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.

Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.

The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.

The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.

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