Sports Then and Now

Championship week has arrived for college basketball! Conference tournaments abound across the country from coast to coast featuring all the power conferences, mid-majors, and small conferences that make up Division I in the NCAA. There will be great performances by teams, individuals, and coaches while the games themselves are bound to feature some come-from-behind efforts that pluck victory from the jaws of defeat with some buzzer beaters. This is what makes the month of March so special. It is the madness before the madness of the NCAA Tournament. It will feature bubble teams that solidify their spot in the NCAA field and bubble teams who see their bubble burst. Seedings for the NCAA Tourney are on the line and will be impacted by what happens over the next seven days. Quite simply it is couch potato heaven for college basketball junkies across the land.

The 2017 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament is taking place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY for the first time ever.

While this years’ heavyweights such as Kansas, Gonzaga, Villanova, and North Carolina look to show why they are the cream of the crop for likely NCAA #1 seeds, there are plenty of other national title worthy contenders like Kentucky, Arizona, UCLA, Duke, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Oregon. Other schools like Big East competitors Butler, Creighton, Seton Hall, Providence, and Marquette all won at least 10 conference games this season and could make some noise in March. Smaller schools from less worthy conferences like Vermont (27-5, 16-0) of the America East and Middle Tennessee (27-4, 17-1) of Conference USA could make a run. Both schools are riding winning streaks with Vermont having won 19 straight and Middle Tennessee seven. Both Vermont and Middle Tennessee have produced significant upsets in NCAA history. In 2005, 13^th-seeded Vermont upset a fourth-seeded Syracuse team that was fresh off a Big East Tournament Championship. Middle Tennessee, a 15^th seed, upset second-seeded Michigan State in last year’s tournament. Results like these explain why March is so thrilling and dramatic. It captivates audiences across the country based on upsets by the little schools like these. They get on a run and gain the support of their schools so much that it can carry them on a fairy tale ride.

Before we get that far, the conference tournament championships are to be decided this week. In the process, the NCAA field will be determined with some teams sneaking in, others being left out, and others altering their seed and positioning for better or worse. Here is a look at one of the power conferences, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and how its’ conference tournament shapes up this week. The ACC Tournament Championship game will be played Saturday night March 11 at 9 pm EST and it can be seen live on ESPN.

North Carolina (26-6, 14-4), #1 seed

The ACC Tournament is being held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY for the first time ever. North Carolina enters the tournament as the outright ACC regular season champion and is the defending tournament champion. The Tarheels (26-6, 14-4) ended the regular season with a 90-83 win over arch rival Duke on Mar. 4 to split the annual season series.  North Carolina has played in the ACC Tournament Championship game each of the last two years, falling to Notre Dame 90-82 in the 2015 title game before beating Virginia 61-57 in last year’s finale.

Head coach Roy Williams has his team playing at a high level yet again after coming within a whisker of winning an NCAA title last

Roy Williams has lead North Carolina to the top seed in the tournament.

year. Despite losing four-year starting guard Marcus Paige and Associated Press All-American forward Brice Johnson, North Carolina has enjoyed another stellar season. Both took key production with them as Johnson averaged 17.0 points-per-game and 10.4 rebounds a game while Paige scored 12.6 points-per-game and dished out 128 assists on the season. Yet the heels have retooled this season and may be a better all-around team. Junior forward Justin Jackson was just named the ACC Player-of-the-Year and leads the team with 18.3 ppg. He also dishes out 2.6 assists and hauls in 4.7 rebounds-per-game. Junior guard Joel Berry II adds 15.1 ppg and dishes out a team best 3.7 apg while senior post player Kennedy Meeks scores 12.5 ppg and leads the team with 9.1 rpg. Berry is the team’s best 3-point shooter at 42.4 percent (75-for-177) while Jackson has made a team-high 85 trifectas on the season.

North Carolina’s victories over Florida State, Louisville, and Notre Dame this season allowed them to create a two-game cushion

and ultimately win the ACC regular season title. They will likely have to face one of these teams in the ACC tournament again and this can always be interesting a second time around. Carolina will have to bring the same intensity and high production on offense that saw them score 85.2 ppg in the regular season if they are to beat these same teams again in postseason play.

Florida State (24-7, 12-6) is the second seed followed by Notre Dame (23-8, 12-6) and Louisville (24-7, 12-6) as the third and fourth seeds respectively. These three schools along with North Carolina all received a double bye and won’t play until the quarterfinal round beginning on Thursday March 9. You can easily make a case for any of these top four seeds to win the tournament championship as they were very competitive against each other during the season. While North Carolina beat each of the other three to create separation from them in winning the regular season crown, all four teams were very competitive against each other.

Florida State beat both Louisville and Notre Dame at home and lost at Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish split home and home wins with both Florida State and Louisville while Louisville lost to Florida State and split home and home wins with Notre Dame. Basically, the top four seeds in this year’s ACC Tourney beat up on each other in the regular season. Even though North Carolina beat the other three teams, the games between the four teams were very competitive and could of gone either way. What each team learned from the other one in those games should be a factor in preparation for potential matchups among the quartet this week. Read the rest of this entry →

The Early History of Sports Betting

Sports betting is thought to be a very old practice: the first evidence of its existence is over 2 000 years old. The first nation to be believed to indulge in this pastime were the Greeks, famous for their love of sporting activities, who used to place bets on a variety of athletic events.

The Romans then went on to usurp this Grecian habit, taking it further by rendering it a more commercial activity. They even assigned it a legal status, and bet on events like the Gladiator games. Even when this event ceased to be practiced, the gambling aspect of it survived, and went on to thrive in the various kingdoms the Romans established.

The Medieval Wagering Practices

In medieval times, some leaders frowned upon the practice of betting, and attempts were made to make laws forbidding it. This, however, only resulted in sports betting going underground, where it persisted, and underwent major evolutionary steps as new athletic activities were introduced.

Sporting Betting in England and Surrounds

Eventually gambling took off in England, with people there particularly fond of betting on horse racing events. The English took this love of gambling with them when they populated the rest of the planet, particularly the United States of America, and it was incredibly common with the inhabitants of the New World. Legal issues once again plagued the practice, however, a problematic situation that continues for American sports bettors today. Read the rest of this entry →

Any sports fan on the planet has been interested at testing their knowledge against the sportsbooks. Regardless whether it’s just a temporary hobby or a more professional pastime, you should be aware of the basics before taking it up. Although there are no specific rules to prevent you from placing an otherwise legitimate bet, some guidelines could help you make the most of it.

Choose Your Sportsbook

The legal regulations may restrict you in terms of land-based betting, but when it comes to online sites, there are numerous legal US gambling sites to choose from. Of course, legislation may vary from one state to the next, which is why you should check the laws from the start.

Although it may seem as if there’s no need for so many sportsbooks, you’ll soon realize that they may differ greatly in terms of regular and special offers.

Learn the Language

The next step towards betting is learning how to do it. As silly as it may seem, you need to be able to read the lines on the sportsbooks. There are a couple of segments, such as the money line and the point spread, all of which are crucial when wagering your money. Read the rest of this entry →

There’s no denying the fact Americans love to bet on sports. For example, there’s plenty of evidence showing that some players on the Chicago White Sox accepted bribes in order to purposely lose the 1919 MLB World Series.

The sports betting industry is now worth multiple billions annually. A lot of money is wagered in Nevada where people can legally bet on sports, but even more money is wagered offshore using online sportsbooks.

We’re not lawyers and won’t discuss the legalities of betting online because they vary by state, but there’s no federal law preventing Americans from betting on the internet and we’ve never heard of individual bettors being prosecuted.

With that being said, it’s illegal to operate an online sportsbook, which is why they’re all located offshore. There are several popular licensing jurisdictions, including Kahnawake (Canada), Curacao, Malta, Antigua and Isle of Man.

The US government also makes it difficult to operate an online bookie by having banks block transactions. This is why it’s difficult to deposit for American bettors, although there are still simple methods available.

For many years now most bettors have been using Western Union or MoneyGram to send and receive money. The one downside is the fees associated with these payment methods, which really cuts into most bettors profit margin. Read the rest of this entry →

On US territory, there is a specific group of states which are allowed to license sports betting, starting off with Nevada – which has the full legal package. Additionally, Montana, Delaware and Oregon also allow sports betting to a certain degree. But when it comes to New Jersey, the matter has reached a status of one of the most controversial legal cases in the country.

Back in 1992, the major professional sports leagues went to Congress trying to lobby for the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, commonly known as PASPA. This act bars all states which haven’t legalized sports betting (at the time, Nevada was the only exception, with the other three states to a limited extent) from doing so. Once the PASPA had been passed, Nevada was left to gloat in its dominance.

However, in 2012, New Jersey could no longer endure the slow failure of Atlantic City’s casinos, demanding legalization of sports betting on its territory. Their primary claim was that the PASPA is against the constitution, but once they filed this to the government officials, federal judges proclaimed it as completely lawful. Read the rest of this entry →

Sport is a massive part of many people’s lives, whether as something that they participate in, go to watch in person or enjoy watching on the TV.  From football and cricket to rugby, athletics and American football, there are lots of sports that cross borders and are popular around the world.  Then there are the weird sports you don’t know about, the ones that might not get their own TV channel or massive Facebook following…

Oil Wrestling

Many fans of wrestling will have seen the big names engaged in competitions under spotlights with hundreds of fans cheering them on.  Oil wrestling doesn’t have quite the same following but is popular across Turkey, Greece and parts of Macedonia.  There is an annual festival in Kirkpinar, Turkey that dates back to 1357.  The idea is simple – participants are covered in olive oil and have to wrest their opponent to the ground.  It has recently spread to Japan and Netherlands among other locations.

Zorbing

Zorbing is a bit of a mixture of sports and fitness and involves people getting into giant plastic inflatable orbs and running down a gentle slope.  You can also do it on a level area if you want a little more control.  People race each other and there can be plenty of good natured collisions to knock your friend out of position but it doesn’t seem likely to be enrolled in the Olympics any time soon!

Cheese rolling

This one comes from Gloucester in the UK where every last weekend in May (a Bank Holiday) people gather to roll a three-kilogram wheel of cheese down Cooper’s Hill in the city.  People don’t race cheeses but actually race each other and the first person to pass the finish line, after the cheese, wins the title – and the cheese.  But beware – this cheese can hit 30mph so some training is required beforehand. Read the rest of this entry →