Iowa fires hoops coach Lickliter

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/15/2010 - Iowa City, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Iowa has fired head men's basketball coach Todd Lickliter.

The school announced the news Monday, and while Iowa athletic director Gary Barta said he still believes Lickliter is "a tremendous basketball coach," he cited lack of improvement as a reason for the coaching change.

"If you take a look at our competitive record the past three years, it has not been improving," Barta said. "It still continues to be below where we would expect; our attendance and our season ticket sales have continued to go down. This is not something that started three years ago, but in the past three years it has continued to go down dramatically."

The Hawkeyes were just 10-22 in 2009-10, with a 4-14 record in the Big Ten. Their season ended with a loss to Michigan in the first round of the conference tournament.

The 10 wins this season marked the fewest for the program since a 10-16 mark in 1974-75.

In three seasons under Lickliter, Iowa went 38-58. He took over at Iowa in April 2007 after six seasons as head coach at Butler, his alma mater, where he compiled a 131-61 record with four postseason appearances, including trips to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and 2007.

Online-wagering-casino NCAA Basketball Betting News

<< Power-ful return to IndyCar
Sao Paulo, Brazil (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Seven months after suffering back injuries in a practice crash at Sonoma, CA, Will Power made an impressive comeback in the IZOD IndyCar Series by winning the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 in Brazil. Powe

<< Wizards add to midfield depth with signings
Kansas City, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Kansas City Wizards signed midfielders Ryan Smith and Igor Kostrov, the Major League Soccer club announced on Monday. The team also announced that it has signed English midfielder Craig Rocastle. "We'r

<< Ovechkin suspended two games for "reckless" hit on Campbell
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin has been suspended two games without pay for his hit on Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brian Campbell. The incident, which the NHL called "a reckless hit" in

<< Lions get CB Houston from Falcons
Allen Park, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Lions acquired cornerback Chris Houston from the Atlanta Falcons for a pair of draft picks on Monday. Detroit gave up its sixth-round choice in the 2010 NFL Draft in addition to a conditional s

<< Lamely rallies for first PGA Tour title
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Derek Lamely fired a six-under 66 in the final round Monday to come from behind and win the rain-delayed Puerto Rico Open. Lamely, who won for the first time on the PGA Tour, completed the event

Packers re-sign T Tauscher >>
Green Bay, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Green Bay Packers on Monday re-signed veteran offensive tackle Mark Tauscher to a two-year contract. The Wisconsin product has spent his entire 10-year career with the Packers, who selected the 6-f

Djokovic sneaks into fourth round at Indian Wells >>
Indian Wells, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 2 Novak Djokovic barely survived his third-round match Monday at the $4.5 million BNP Paribas Open, an ATP World Tour Masters event. The second-seeded Djokovic outlasted 25th-seeded German Philip

Giants, Jets to both host games opening weekend >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Giants and New York Jets will both host games at their new home, Meadowlands Stadium, on the opening weekend of the 2010 regular season. The Giants will play Sunday afternoon, September 12,

Seahawks ink TE Baker >>
Kirkland, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Seattle Seahawks on Monday added depth at the tight end position by signing veteran Chris Baker. Per club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed. The 30-year-old Baker spent last season with the P

UConn leads top seeds for women's tourney >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Connecticut, Stanford, Tennessee and Nebraska all earned top seeds for the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, which begins Saturday at campus sites around the country. Connecticut (33-0) is t

Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.