Ron Raymond's Sports Betting Blog

How do you like me now?

CBS should have closed off the night with Toby Keith’s song “how do you like me now?”, as the Dogs finally showed up to the March Madness tournament on day #2, a day late mind you, but nevertheless!

In fact, the favorite still won the majority of the games straight up, having a 10-6 SU edge on the day, but the bookmakers finally had a good day of creating balanced action, as the battle of the ATS spread fight was 8-8-0. Now that’s more like it! The bookmaker’s job is to create even action and to put out a competitive line, something they did not do on day #1, when 13 of the 16 favorites covered the spread. For those counting at home, the over/under was 10-5-1 favoring the OVER.

Which made me look at my handicapping tools for Day #3, as both teams have now played a game and here’s where experience handicappers and players go to their resources to come up with their own numbers and match them against the bookmaker’s numbers. Therefore, using my ATSCalculator.com and ATSRatings.com handicapping tools, I’ve compared my numbers today to the bookmakers.

Current Line - ATSCalculator - ATSRatings
Purdue vs. Xavier
(Line: 131.5) 133.14 134.27

West Virginia vs. Duke
(Line: 147.5) 145.03 141.18

UNLV vs. Kansas
(Line: 138.0) 136.3 139.1

Kansas State vs. Wisky
(Line: 130.5) 133.11 132.33

Mich St. vs. Pitts
(Line: 131.5) 133.14 130.29

ND vs. Wash St.
(Line: 134.0) 134.69 135.7

Marquette vs. Stanford
(Line: 133) 137.75 139.20

Texas A&M vs. UCLA:
(Line 124.5) 131.92 129.22

*Tip: Normally when a team like Duke nearly suffers an UPSET lost vs. a lower rank school, it’s a sign they aren’t as good as you might think, and to see them as a -4 point favorite today, tells me the bookmaker is thinking their reputation as a good basketball program will garner them even balance on the spread sheet. You might want to stock up on some West Virginia stocks today! Also, Tom Izzo has proven to be a great tournament coach and to see his Spartans as a +2.0 point dog is good enough reason to play on the Sparties today!

Enjoy your Saturday.