Battling the Books – June 8

TWO National TV Bets Today!

THIS is what Saturdays are made for – the day off, no yard work, no errands, no responsibilities and TWO juicy nationally televised games that ya just gotta have action on.

First up we have a WNBA divisional matchup between the top two teams in the league, the 9-2 New York Liberty and the undefeated 9-0 Connecticut Sun.

Unfortunately, this game doesn’t qualify for any of the handicapping methods I use for the WNBA so I have no edges to play, but I’m looking at the Sun (and yes, it’s the Sun not the Suns, I don’t know why, I guess it’s one of those Stanford Cardinal things.)

One factor that makes the Connecticut pick enticing is I can get the undefeated team, at home, and not have to lay any points.
That’s right, the books hung a +2 on the Sun.

One of the knocks on picking Connecticut in this spot is they supposedly haven’t played a very tough schedule, but I’m not buying that. It’s true, they’ve been beating up on the dregs of the league like Washington and Indiana, but five of New York’s wins have come against those same two teams. And Connecticut has a quality win over Minnesota, who’s tied for the third best record in the league, a Minnesota team kicked New York’s ass by 17 points.

And Massey has Connecticut rated only one place behind New York in SOS (Strength of Schedule), so there really is no advantage for the Liberty.

On paper these two teams are pretty evenly matched, but there’s one factor that could give Connecticut a sizable advantage – New York’s on-court quarterback/shot caller/playmaker Courtney Vandersloot (an American Horror Story’s Pepper look-alike – kidding) is a game time decision due to a back injury.

I hope she’s feeling better and is ready to play.
STARTING TOMORROW.

Caution, ugly stat notice: New York has won five of the last six in this matchup. Connecticut has gone 4-2 ATS in those six games but I’m getting just +2 today, so that 4-2 is not much consolation.

For my second bet of the day we have the opening game of the UFL playoffs, the showdown between Birmingham and Michigan.

I’m down 0-2 for the new league and would like to recoup one of those two units.
And I’m looking to Birmingham to get it for me.

I have no system play edges in this one either but like I said, big game, national TV, I want a rooting interest. Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut feel, and my gut says when the money is on the table you don’t bet against the two-time champions, the Birmingham Stallions.

Yes, it will likely be a tight game.
Yes, – 5 is about two points more than I’d like to be giving in this spot.
But I’ll take the better team, with the better coach (Skip Holtz over Michigan’s Mike Nolan), at home.

And what the hell, these are small, action-only size bets for fun, so let’s make it a THREE TV BETS day. Last week, Michigan and Birmingham played each other in a meaningless contest knowing they’d meet again this week for the game that really mattered.
Neither wanted to show their hand, both played a vanilla offense and we still saw 39 points scored.
I suspect they’ll both open it up today.
I’m on the Over.

Remember to check back tomorrow – I’ve got a really good prop bet for game two of the NBA championship series.

Recap: 0-1
Record: 4-3 (UFL 0-2) (WNBA 3-2) (NBA 1-0)

Review: Took an L with the Dallas Wings last night. Nothing I can learn from the loss to use in future games, can’t see anything in hindsight that I should have done differently. I like the stats I used. The Wings just folded in the fourth quarter. Nothing to do but move on.

Today’s plays:

• Conn +2
• Birm – 5
• Mich/Birm Ov 43