No.5 UNC takes on Maryland in College Park

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/04/2012 - College Park, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The fifth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels play their fourth road game in the last six outings, as they head to College Park for an ACC showdown with the Maryland Terrapins.

Roy Williams' Tar Heels are sitting atop the ACC standings, tied with Duke and Florida State at 6-1. The team has won four straight since suffering a humbling loss at Florida State a couple of weeks ago. Most recently, UNC dispatched Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, 68-53.

Mark Turgeon's first season in College Park has certainly come with its ups and downs. The Terrapins are five games over .500 on the year, but one game under that mark (3-4) in-conference. Maryland has dropped four of its last five games, including a heart-breaking 90-86 double-overtime affair at Miami earlier this week.

Maryland has won four of the last six meetings in this series, but North Carolina still holds a sizable 115-57 lead overall. UNC has lost five of the last seven meetings in College Park.

The Tar Heels have recently lost starting guard Dexter Strickland to a season- ending knee injury, but with superior talent and depth, they will be able to assuage the loss. North Carolina enters this contest as the top offensive team in the nation, averaging 84.1 ppg on a healthy .471 shooting. UNC has also carried over its strong play to the defensive end, holding foes under 40 percent from the floor (.384) and leading the nation with a +11.8 rebounding margin. The team is fueled by the best frontcourt in the country, with Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller all playing at an All-American level. Barnes has the ability to score from anywhere on the floor, averaging 17.3 ppg. Zeller is next in line at 15.0 ppg and is almost averaging a double- double with 9.7 rpg. Henson is averaging a double-double, with 14.2 points and 10.0 rebounds per game. Sophomore point guard Kendall Marshall is tasked with getting the ball to the right people and is as good as it gets nationally in that regard, averaging 9.5 assists per game (second nationally).

Zeller was unstoppable in the win over Wake Forest this week, posting 18 points and 18 rebounds. Henson also had a double-double with 14 points and 12 boards. Marshall got into the act as well as a scorer with 14 points, while dishing out six assists, while Barnes completed the top scorers with 13 points. UNC won handily, despite shooting a poor .310 from the floor overall, including .211 from behind the arc. The Tar Heels made up for it by outrebounding the Demon Deacons 55-40, including grabbing 22 offensive boards.

Despite having the conference's top scorer, the Terrapins lack the kind of offensive depth needed to win games against the upper echelon in the ACC. Maryland comes into this game averaging a modest 69.4 ppg on .432 shooting. The problem is, that the team is yielding 69.9 ppg. Terrell Stoglin has done all he can to keep the Terps competitive. The 6-1 sophomore is averaging an ACC-best 21.8 ppg and is responsible for more than half (58) of the team's three-pointers to date (105). Backcourt mate Sean Mosley is a distant second in the scoring column at 10.1 ppg. Junior forward James Padgett (9.0 ppg, team-high 5.9 rpg) is the top option up front.

Maryland came all the way back from a 16-point point second-half deficit to force two overtimes at Miami, but was unable to get the win, falling by four points to the Hurricanes. The setback spoiled a career-night for Stoglin, who was 9-of-26 from the floor, with six three-pointers and a perfect 9-of-9 from the free-throw line, to finish with a career-high 33 points. Alex Len added 11 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots in the loss.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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