Stay away from college rivalry games. That's one of the first rules I learned about gambling. There's too emotion involved in the games I was told, too much history, and most importantly, too many intangibles.
As I do with most good advice I get, I completely ignored it. It never really came back to bite me until Saturday, when Duke and North Carolina met for a second round of college basketball's greatest rivalry. I will never bet on another Duke/UNC game in my life.
The week before the game was filled with talk that the rivalry was overrated. The fact that the game was on three different channels and promoted incessantly didn't help the situation, either. It was easy to understand the overrated talk as the game wasn't shaping up to be a great one.
Carolina had made it a game earlier in the season, but surely a team that young would struggle going into the toughest home-court environment in the country to take on the top-ranked team in the country. They were going up against a Duke team with two All-Americans in their starting lineup and four seniors, so needless to say, the Duke -6 line looked very appealing.
Stacking the odds even further against UNC, SportsRant's version of Brandon Lang, A.J. Braves (the SportsRant Radio host who was 13-16 in picking games this season), was taking the Blue Devils. After watching Tennessee (+2) beat Vanderbilt by 9 and Kansas (-5) dropping K-State by 14, I couldn't have felt better going into Saturday night's game with Duke as the third team of my three-team parlay.
The game started with an emotional J.J. Redick making four of his first five shots to put Duke up 13-2. I felt like this was a safer bet than riding the moneyline on the Globetrotters to take down the Washington Generals. I started thinking about how I was going to spend my newfound wealth ($100) when Carolina started to claw its way back into the game. Then a funny thing happened, UNC stopped playing intimidated. As most people know now, Carolina ended up winning the game by seven and the four Carolina freshmen outscored the four Duke seniors 55-51 on senior night.
In retrospect, I could've been smarter about this game. After all, Duke is running out of gas, was coming off a loss, and J.J. Redick has been running on empty for games. And at least until he graduates, Duke will go as far as J.J. Redick will take them. (And can we stop the whole "J.J. and Adam should split the POY awards?" Would anyone be happy if Vince Young and Reggie Bush were co-Heisman winners? Of course not. There should be one player of the year: J.J. Redick.) If he's having an off-night, the rest of the team can rarely pick up the slack. Still, it's close to impossible to predict off-nights for players (any stock I would've put into his recent trend was offset by the fact that it was senior night).
Of course, I could've used past history as a barometer to stay the hell away from this game. The last eight games between these rivals have been decided by an average of less than four points. If there was ever going to be a lopsided game, it should've been this years. Even with Duke losing their All-Americans, all-time leading scorer in Redick, and four key players after this season, the rivalry will be stronger than ever.
On Saturday, it was the Carolina freshmen getting the playing time and the exposure. Tyler Hansbrough is going to be UNC's first freshman in program history to lead the team in scoring and rebounding and point guard Bobby Frasor hit some key shots and has played strong all year long. Danny Green and Marcus Ginyard are also starting to hit their groove on the court.
Still, Duke's freshmen are just as tough. Greg Paulus leads the ACC in assists as a freshman and another Duke starter, Josh McRoberts, is going to be a star for the Blue Devils. Naturally, most assume that UNC's duo of Hansbrough and Frasor are better, but it's impossible to compare them. Given my choice, I probably even take Paulus and McRoberts over Frasor and Hansbrough. Either way, it will be great for college basketball watching them develop over the next three seasons of college basketball's greatest rivalry.
Just remember, if you're a betting man, make sure to stay the hell away from it.
The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. BetOnSports.com gives you the greatest sports action to bet on. Wager on football, cricket, boxing, rugby, horse racing, and more. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
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