This Week's College Basketball Winning Thought With Alan Boston: When injuries/suspensions should affect a bet -- and when they shouldn't.
Boston was on a roll this week, so I'm going to dispense with the preamble and let the man go:
"Through years of doing this, I used to comb for every injury imaginable -- and would adjust my rating based on how important I thought the player was. Sometimes I would win and sometimes I would lose. But, 20 years later, I figured out that injuries don't mean a thing. Guys like Evan Turner from the Ohio State Buckeyes are the rare exception. Look at the Oklahoma Sooners on Wednesday night. Both of their starting guards were out and yet Oklahoma ran off to a big lead against the Iowa State Cyclones and won rather comfortably. Go to Texas Tech, which was also down two starters. Yet it played the Texas Longhorns and had its best game of the year. The Red Raiders dominated the game for long stretches and toyed with the Horns, really. They covered easily. Creighton suspended a starting guard and replaced him with a guy who had taken one shot in nine MVC games, a freshman. He had 13 points against Bradley in a game Creighton won and covered. Those are significant losses to those three teams and all three were never in jeopardy of not covering.
To read Alan Boston's take on the one injury in college basketball that should turn you off betting even the hottest team, you must be an ESPN Insider.
- Editor in Chief of ESPN The Magazine
- Writes "Behind The Bets" blog on sports gambling
- Authored seven books, including "The Odds"
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Chad Millman
Chad Millman, Editor in Chief of ESPN The Magazine, joined The Mag as an associate editor in 1998. A year later he left to write "The Odds" -- about a trio of Vegas bookmakers and wiseguys -- and to find riches working for an Internet company. He made tens of dollars on "The Odds," the web biz tanked and he returned to The Mag. He also worked at Sports Illustrated and wrote some other books, including "Iceman" with Chuck Liddell, "Invincible" with Vince Papale, "Pickup Artists" with Lars Anderson, and "The Detonators." His most recent books are the national bestseller "The Ones Who Hit the Hardest," about the blood feud between the 70s Steelers and Cowboys, written with Shawn Coyne, and the New York Times bestseller "They Call Me Baba Booey", with Gary Dell'Abate.
Millman's daily blog explores the culture of sports gambling; on Mondays and Fridays in the fall, he investigates trends in point spreads related to professional football.
E-mail Chad: Chad.X.Millman@espn.com
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