Tuesday Best Bets, Monday Recaps
Monday was a day where we felt a shift to spending more time on basketball in the Tuley’s Takes home office as we did a lot of research on the upcoming college basketball conference tournaments and watched more hoops than pucks.
I did have to pick up my son, Maddux, after school and take him to his Las Vegas Youth Orchestra practice (with our weekly trip to In N Out, where I ordered the triple-triple cheeseburger and extra large chocolate milk shake off the famous “secret menu”).
While he was at LVYO, I went to the Westgate and watched my Best Bet of the day on a Red Wings-Senators/Canucks-Stars First-Period Over 1.5 parlay lose as the Red Wings-Senators only combined for 1 goal despite Ottawa having seven shots on goal in the closing minutes (adding insult to the injury on my wallet, the Senators scored in the first 3:41 of the 2nd Period and the two teams combined for 5 goals in that period; in retrospect, I should have parlayed Red Wings-Senators 2P Over 1.5 with Canucks-Stars 1P Over 1.5 as the latter easily cashed with 2 goals in the first 8:37 and 4 goals in the opening 20 minutes).
But by then my focus had already turned to my NBA play on the Miami Heat +6 at the 76ers as Miami jumped out to an early lead and pulled out a 101-99 outright upset. Then, I also cashed with my college basketball play as West Virginia upset Iowa State 72-69. When I handicapped that game on Sunday and gave it out on my weekly appearance on “The Greg Peterson Experience” and in the Monday morning version of this column, it was a pick on an unranked team vs. a Top 25 team as Iowa State was ranked No. 23 (but then fell out of the Top 25 when AP released its poll later Monday morning). Anyway, it turned out to be a winning day.
Let’s recap the rest of Monday’s action in the major team sports and then look for more Best Bets for Tuesday.
Monday Recaps
CBB: West Virginia (+4) upset Iowa State 72-69 in Big 12 battle after Iowa State just fell out of Top 25 this week (went Over betting total of 134.5 points). No. 7 Baylor beat Oklahoma State 74-68, covering as short 1-point road favorite (went just Over 141.5 on free throws with 5 seconds left).
NBA: Underdogs went 3-1 SU and ATS on Monday with upsets by the Heat (+5.5 in 101-99 win at 76ers), Knicks (+2 in 109-94 win vs. Celtics) and Magic (+4.5 in 101-93 win at Pelicans). The Hornets (-7) were the lone chalk to win/cover in 117-106 victory vs. Pistons. Home/road teams split 2-2 SU and ATS. Unders swept 4-0.
More NBA: Faves dropped to 594-312 SU on the season with 15 games closing pick-’em while dogs improved their slim ATS lead to 449-435-22 (50.8%). Home teams lead 551-370 SU and 475-426-20 ALTS (52.7%). In totals wagering, Overs’ slim lead dipped to 457-450-14 (50.4%).
NHL: Faves went 4-1 Monday with the lone upset by the Canucks (+230 in 5-4 OT win at the Stars). The Senators, Bruins, Avalanche and Ducks won as chalk. Home teams went 3-2. Overs/Unders split 2-2-1 with the push in the Ducks’ 4-2 win at the Blackhawks with a betting total of 6 goals.
College basketball Best Bets
Lipscomb +2 at Stetson: I’m not sure the right team is favored here in this Atlantic Sun Tournament game. Although Stetson won the first meeting between these teams back in December, they just met last Friday with Lipscomb pulling away with 17 points in overtime to win 98-91 in the regular-season finale as Stetson didn’t have an answer for Jacob Ognacevic (29 points) and Derrin Boyd (20) as the Bison had a 54-32 edge in the paint and also had a season-low five turnovers.
Arkansas +6.5 at Tennessee: This is more of a fade of Tennessee, which is 2-6 ATS down the stretch. However, we also like what we see from Arkansas, which has been getting healthier and is on an 8-3 ATS run as well as 7-2 ATS in their last 9 games vs. teams with a winning record, including losing only 86-83 to No. 2 Alabama on Saturday. We expect another close game here.
Tuesday NHL Best Bet
Kings-Jets 1P Under 1.5 +115: This is the only NHL play I’m making on Tuesday as the Jets are the No. 3 1P Under team and these teams combine to hit 66-55 (54.5%) on the season. That tells me this should be around -120, but we’re getting a decent plus-price. There’s another potential 1P Under play on Tuesday as the two top teams meet with the Wild hosting the Islanders as they combine for 74-49 (60.2%) with 1P Unders. But the books are onto those teams as that line was -125 overnight at DraftKings and -145 at BetMGM. I’ll pass on that one.
XFL Week 3 Best Bet
San Antonio Brahmas +4 at Houston Roughnecks: I also gave this out Sunday night/Monday morning and it’s up to +4.5 at BetMGM and Resorts World here in Vegas as well as DraftKIngs in other states, so followers might want to wait and shop around. Houston was middle-of-the-pack in preseason XFL futures but now they’re the +300 favorite at Circa Sports after routing Orlando 33-12 in the season-opener and beating Arlington 23-14 on Sunday night. Meanwhile, San Antonio lost only 18-15 to preseason favorite St. Louis in the opener and then nearly beat Orlando (30-12) by as much as Houston did. Road teams are 5-3 ATS so far in the XFL, so I think Houston is being given too much for home-field advantage in a game that I feel should be closer to pick-’em, or at least under a field goal.
