Growing up, my brother and I would watch the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. One of our favorite guests was Criswell, a strange sounding character who predicted the future. Carson would have him on in December to tell his viewing audience what bizarre things were going to happen in the coming year. Being little kids, we believed Criswell and were sure his predictions would come true.Little did we know that Criswell was a bit off-kilter and being extremely odd was what had made him famous. You may recall him acting in probably the worst movie of all time, “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. It is so bad it actually is entertaining.
To his credit, Criswell did announce several months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated that JFK would not run for re-election because of something that would happen to him in November, 1963. And, while he also predicted years in advance the election of then actor Ronald Reagan as Governor of California, the prediction I remember the most on Carson was that blind cockroaches would be found on the west coast. I was amazed by that and for the next year asked my mother every week if she had heard about any new important discoveries concerning cockroaches.
In a basic sense, betting on sports is predicting the future. You are trying to make money by predicting the outcome of an event, or even something pertaining to an entire season, a true futures bet. Not only can you bet on who is going to win a national championship, but even who will win a division or conference. Many sportsbooks have futures wagers on who will win the home run race, the Cy Young Award, MVP, etc.
A friend of mine showed me a futures ticket he had for Arizona to win the Super Bowl. After Arizona beat Atlanta, he placed a $600 wager to win 18 dimes, 30 to 1 odds, on the Cards being crowned the next world champions.
I love to bet season wins in sports and do so every year with quite a very good success rate. Since I am already tying up a chunk of change for an entire season on my season wins bets, I normally don’t make many futures wagers, also. However, after my friend Dan showed me that ticket, I have changed my attitude.
When you consider that a recent spat of unlikely candidates have won league and even national championships, such as Tampa Bay in Major League Baseball last year or the Boston Celtics, which started out last spring with 125 to 1 odds to win it all in the NBA, why not devote more time in looking for potential winners other than your early favorites. Since there is no time like the present, let’s start by looking at candidates to win the 2009 College Basketball Championship.
To start this selection process, I wanted to see what type of numbers in offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency teams that had been very successful in the tournament the past five years. Instead of just taking the teams who had made it to the Final Four, I added the Elite Eight teams into the data sample also. Games involving Elite Eight teams can sometimes go either way as the competition is so keen and the skill set of each team is so good. I did not include Sweet 16 teams as there is a higher chance of luck for a team to make it that far as compared to getting to the Elite Eight. Sometimes higher-seeded teams get upset and help clear a path to the Sweet 16 for some squads that truly don’t meet up to the standards of a team deserving to make it to the final eight.
Besides offensive efficiency, the number of points scored per 100 offensive possessions, and defensive efficiency, the number a team allows, I calculated the difference between the two by subtracting the DE from the OE. I marked the lowest rating of each category from the teams who had made it to the Final Four over the past five years. From this year’s current ratings, I listed any team who was equal or better than those minimum rating for OE, DE, and the difference between OE and DE. The minimum I used for each category was the following:
Category:
Minimum RatingOffensive Efficiency: 109.9
Defensive Efficiency: 90.0
Difference OE vs. DE: 20.0
Under this year’s rankings, there were 52 teams that qualified under offensive efficiency, 28 had low enough defensive efficiency numbers, and 36 had a good enough differential between OE and DE to make the list.
The next step was to see what teams made all three lists. Many teams were on two of the qualifying lists but not all three. The biggest downfall for most teams was their failure to have a good enough DE rating. Baylor had the fourth best offense at the time of this article but was only 86th in defense. Notre Dame was #6 offensively but even worse than Baylor in DE, # 166.
A few squads made the cut on defense but fell miserably short offensively. Southern California was the fifteenth best defense but only #77 on offense. Washington State was #12 on DE but a mediocre #146 on OE.
There were sixteen teams that made the minimum requirements in all three categories. These are my potential Final Four teams. From this pool, I will select what teams to place bets to win it all. They are in order by their differential rating. I also included the odds as listed by sportsbook.com to win it all. Futures odds vary greatly. At the Stations Casinos in Vegas, posted on their intranet betting service for Nevada residents, they have North Carolina at 5 to 6, Wake Forest at 7 to 1, and a huge difference with Gonzaga at 6 to 1.
Rank, Team, Differential, Odds
1. Duke: 34.35 (7 to 1)
2. North Carolina: 33.86 (2.25 to 1)
3. Pittsburgh: 31.63 (7 to 1)
4. Missouri: 30.06 (100 to 1)
5. Gonzaga: 30 (30 to 1)
6. Arizona St.: 29.54 (35 to 1)
7. Connecticut: 29.27 (6 to 1)
8. Georgetown: 28.51 (50 to 1)
9. West Virginia: 28.4 (100 to 1)
10. Wake Forest: 25.8 (14 to 1)
11. Illinois: 24.42 (50 to 1)
12. Xavier: 24.23 (80 to 1)
13. Washington: 23.59 (50 to 1)
14. Kentucky: 22.93 (40 to 1)
15. Utah: 21.84 (250 to 1)
16. Villanova: 21.45 (100 to 1)
There are five Big East representatives, three from the ACC, two are Pac-10 squads, and six teams representing six different conferences.
What was surprising was that so few of Southeastern Schools showed up in the cream of the crop in any of the categories. Outside of Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida were on the OE and the Differential lists but failed to have a good enough DE number. With Florida standing at #76 defensively and Tennessee even lower at #104, the chances are very slim they will qualify defensively.
Four teams, three from the Big 12, are already on two of the three lists and are very close to having good enough marks on all three to qualify for making the potential Final Four group. Kansas is the closest needing only .03 of an improvement defensively. Oklahoma needs to improve their defense by 1.50 to join the FF qualifiers. Needing better offensive numbers are Texas, 2.17 points short, and Memphis, only 1.51 lacking.
Next week I will unveil my futures bets and discuss the different teams chances of being the next national champ.
Oh, and you might make a note of this on your calendar. Shortly before his death in 1982, Criswell predicted the end of the world would happen on the Winter Solstice in the year 2012. Of course he did not clarify whether he was predicting that would happen on the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, which happens in late December, or for the Southern Hemisphere, which rolls around in late June. Maybe the end of the world will happen in two stages with only a half going first and the second half following suit six months later. Maybe by then, we will have found those blind cockroaches.
Jim Kruger is from Vegas Sports Authority and also writes for StatFox.com.
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