Oddsmakers have own rankings

By Jeff Haney

Friday, Feb. 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The most widely hyped college basketball game of the weekend pits unbeaten Memphis against Tennessee in a clash of the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation.

Or does it?

Sure, the Tigers and the Volunteers, who meet at 6 p.m. Saturday, are ranked 1-2 in the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls.

It does not necessarily follow that they are the top two teams in college basketball — at least from a betting outlook.

In the oddsmakers’ top 30 poll, released this week by Las Vegas Sports Consultants, Memphis is ranked No. 4 and Tennessee No. 6.

Kansas and UCLA held on to the top two spots in the LVSC poll, based on the oddsmakers’ power ratings. Memphis dropped from third to fourth in the poll after a week in which the Tigers barely got past Alabama-Birmingham, winning 79-78 as an 8 1/2-point favorite.

North Carolina, No. 3 according to the AP and Las Vegas Sports Consultants, moved up a notch in the oddsmakers’ poll on the strength of a 92-53 thumping of Virginia Tech as a 13-point favorite.

Drake, 23-3 overall and leading the Missouri Valley Conference at 14-2 at midweek, has been showing up on the sports highlight shows more frequently, becoming an underdog darling at No. 16 in the AP poll and perhaps a trendy pick heading into postseason play. The Bulldogs, however, have not impressed the LVSC oddsmakers, who dropped them from No. 29 into the ignominious “others receiving votes” category.

Butler, ranked No. 8 by the AP, also is more lightly regarded by Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which provides betting lines to most Nevada casinos. The Butler Bulldogs are barely hanging on at No. 30 in the LVSC poll.

The lack of a dominant team in college basketball has not gone unnoticed by gamblers this season, nor has the absence of a consensus in the various ranking systems, Las Vegas sports handicapper Joe D’Amico said.

“I think Memphis deserves to be ranked at least in the top two or three in the ratings, but it seems like if you look at 10 different places, you find 10 different opinions,” D’Amico said. “There have been a lot of surprises this year, a lot of teams that are tough to figure out.”

Just as the growing popularity of spread-offense systems has shaken up the college football landscape in recent seasons, the dynamics of big-time college basketball are shifting as well, D’Amico said.

About two decades ago network TV wielded much more power than it does in the age of cable, satellite and ESPN saturation.

“Look at the great coaches who would win constantly,” said D’Amico (online at allamericansports.info). “Bobby Knight at Indiana. Dean Smith at North Carolina. Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. Great players from all around the country wanted to go to these schools because they knew they would be on TV every Saturday, and they wanted to become nationally known.

“Now a lot of other schools can get quality players. It’s really leveling off.”

Teams such as Xavier and Notre Dame, not typically noted as national basketball powerhouses, could make noise in March, D’Amico said. The same goes for Davidson and Gonzaga of the unheralded Southern and West Coast conferences.

“I don’t want to call them smaller conferences or lesser-known conferences anymore, because it seems like they’re all about equally known now,” D’Amico said.

They’re particularly known among gamblers, who have to be aware that even teams with poor straight-up records such as Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana Tech have been covering the point spread at profitable rates this season.

Just as bettors can establish a good case for about eight NBA teams to win the title — instead of the usual three or four that essentially leave the field behind by this point in the season — they also could make an argument for more than a handful of college teams to win the tournament.

Still, the top two leagues look to be the Pac-10 and the Atlantic Coast Conference, thanks largely to UCLA (No. 2 in the LVSC poll), North Carolina (No. 3), Duke (No. 5), Stanford (No. 9), Washington State (No. 10) and Clemson (No. 12).

“UCLA looks strong, and most people didn’t think Stanford would be as strong as they are,” D’Amico said. “And if you asked me before the season where Washington State would be, I wouldn’t have said the Top 10.”

Driver odds

The odds on Ryan Newman to win the 2008 Sprint Cup dropped to 18-1 from 40-1 in Las Vegas sports books after his victory in the Daytona 500 as a 22-1 long shot. Jimmie Johnson (4-1) and Jeff Gordon (5-1) remain the betting favorites to win the season-long points title.

Fight game

IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko is a minus-550 favorite (risk $5.50 to win $1) against Sultan Ibragimov in a matchup of heavyweights from the former Soviet bloc Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York (HBO, Cox cable Channel 200). Ibragimov is plus-375 (risk $1 to net $3.75), according to odds at all Station Casinos properties. The fight is a unification bout of sorts, as Ibragimov’s WBO belt also is on the line.