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01/17/2007 - Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 18th-ranked Butler Bulldogs are the favorites to win the Horizon League title this season, and they will attempt to avoid an upset tonight as they host the Youngstown State Penguins.
On Saturday, Youngstown State was able to halt a three-game slide with an 81-63 decision over Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The win enabled the Penguins to improve to 3-3 in league play and 8-10 overall. Of the 10 true road games that they have played thus far, seven have resulted in defeat.
Butler will attempt to remain perfect at home this season improve its already stellar 15-2 overall record. The Bulldogs moved to 3-1 in Horizon action on Saturday with a 62-47 decision over South Dakota State, as strong defense was again the key to victory.
Butler has won 10 of the 12 all-time meetings with Youngstown State.
The 81 points that Youngstown State scored on Saturday marked the team's second-best offensive output through 18 games. Quin Humphrey totaled 22 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Penguins to the victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Byron Davis tallied 17 points and five assists, and he also registered the squad's only three steals. Keston Roberts scored 14 points, John Barber netted 12 points and Jack Liles had 10 points for Youngstown State, which shot an even 50 percent from the field while limiting the Panthers to 36.1 percent efficiency. Humphrey is averaging 17.7 ppg and 6.6 rpg, and he should be considered one of the best players in the league. Roberts adds 16.4 ppg for the Penguins, who are posting 67.5 ppg this season, a slightly higher average than the 67.0 ppg that they are surrendering.
Butler is limiting its opponents to 56.4 ppg this season on 40.1 percent shooting from the floor, and the Bulldogs have committed just 172 turnovers in 17 games. They play tremendous team basketball and rarely make costly mistakes, and the results of the sound plays are reflected in the 15-2 record. A.J. Graves leads the club in scoring with 18.8 ppg, and he always has the ball late in close games because of the fact that he is one of the nation's best free throw shooters. In fact, he has only missed one attempt in 83 trips to the foul line. Mike Green is contributing 13.6 ppg for Butler, and Brandon Crone adds 10.5 ppg. Crone scored 14 points in the win over South Dakota State, as he was the only starter to reach double figures. Butler shot 51.2 percent from the field and limited its overmatched opponent to 36.1 percent shooting. Graves sat out that game after having oral surgery, but he should be back in the lineup tonight.
<< Rebels and Tigers meet in Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge, LA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 16th-ranked LSU Tigers have the talent
in place for another run at the Final Four, and they are clearly favored in
tonight's game against a talented yet inconsistent Ole Miss team.
On Saturday,
<< Vandy aims for upset of 'Bama
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Vanderbilt Commodores hope to thrill the
Nashville crowd with an upset of the 10th-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide this
evening in an SEC tilt.
Alabama opened league play with an ugly 88-61 loss to
<< Surging Hokies take on Seminoles in Sunshine State
Tallahassee, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two teams sitting at opposite ends of
the ACC landscape get together in Tallahassee this evening, as the red-hot
23rd-ranked Virginia Tech Hokies, take on the Florida State Seminoles in
league
<< Red-hot Badgers play host to Boilermakers
Madison, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Winners of 13 straight games, the second-
ranked Wisconsin Badgers play host to the Purdue Boilermakers this evening
in Big Ten action from the Kohl Center in Madison.
Bo Ryan's squad has been a pi
Irish and Wildcats meet in Big East clash >>
Villanova, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 20th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish
are a perfect 13-0 at home, but must go on the road this evening, as they
take on the Villanova Wildcats in Big East action from the Pavilion.
Mike Brey's s
Brazil on top to open 2007 >>
Zurich, Switzerland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The FIFA/Coca-Cola rankings for the
month of January were released on Wednesday, with Brazil maintaining their
28-point edge over second-place Italy, and not much else changing from the
last ra
Bruins try to hand reeling Sabres another loss >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Buffalo Sabres will try to halt their longest losing
streak of the season tonight, when they welcome the Boston Bruins to HSBC
Arena for the finale of a home-and-home series.
The Sabres, who lead the Eastern Co
Red Wings, Predators ready for key Central showdown >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The top two teams in the Central Division will battle
tonight in the Motor City, as the Detroit Red Wings welcome the Nashville
Predators to Joe Louis Arena.
Both of these clubs have been extremely hot of late,
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.
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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