Saturday was a roller-coaster ride here in the Tuley’s Takes home office.
Our main focus from a journalistic standpoint was on the two NCAA tournament Elite Eight games, but I didn’t have a strong opinion on either game and went with the Thunder + 14 against the Nuggets. This was one of our “swagger plays” as the Thunder snapped a 10-game losing streak on Wednesday and we love to bet these teams as “they get their swagger back” after such a long losing streak, even a team as bad overall as the Thunder. The beauty of the system is we’re almost always getting points on these teams as they’ve been losing so long that the oddsmakers’ have lowered their power rating, plus the public has probably gotten in the habit of fading them when seeing they’re in a long slump.
In fact, this line closed as high as Nuggets -17.5, but even though we had a bit of a scare as the Thunder trailed by 11 after three quarters, we ended up covering easily as the Thunder only lost 113-107. That improved our record to 29-12-1 ATS (70.7 percent) with our top play of the day the past 42 days.
We did lose our secondary best bet on Arkansas + 4 vs. Duke and lost our top NHL First-Period Over play on the Devils-Capitals 1P Over 1.5 and went 2-2 overall with our suggested plays (which doesn’t make money when you’re laying between -145 to -195 if betting straight or in parlays).
But at least we won our biggest bet of the day.
Let’s get to the general recaps of Saturday’s betting action across the major team sports and look for more winners on Sunday.
Saturday’s recaps
CBB: No. 2 seed Villanova beat Houston 50-44 to win the NCAA tournament South Regional and advance to the Final Four. The Wildcats did it as 3-point underdogs and + 145 on the money line as the game stayed way Under the betting total of 127 points. No. 2 seed Duke beat Arkansas 78-69 to win the West Regional and advance to Final Four. The Blue Devils also covered as 4.5-point faves as the game stayed just Under the consensus closing total of 147.5 points. Faves and dogs split 1-1 SU and ATS Saturday; Unders swept 2-0.
More NCAA tournament: Favorites lead 37-20 SU overall with 1 game closing pick-'em (Duke-Texas Tech on Thursday), but underdogs lead 33-24 ATS (57.9 percent) with that 1 PK. Unders improved to 32-26 (55.2 percent) overall as Unders have gone 9-1 since the start of the Sweet 16.
NBA: Faves/dogs split 4-4 SU on Saturday, but dogs went 5-3 ATS as the Thunder (+ 17.5 in 113-107 loss at the Nuggets) covered as dog in SU loss. The outright upsets were by the Spurs (+ 6 in 107-103 win at Pelicans), Kings (+ 2.5 in 114-110 win at Magic), Grizzlies (+ 1 in 127-102 rout vs. the Bucks) and Bulls (+ 2 in 98-94 win at Cavaliers). Unders went 7-1..
NHL: Faves went 10-2 on Saturday with the only upsets by the Canadiens (+ 210 in 4-2 win vs. Maple Leafs) and Canucks (+ 120 in 4-1 win at the Stars). Overs went 6-5-1 with the push coming in the Kings’ 4-2 win vs. the Kraken with a betting total of 6 goals.
Sunday’s Takes
St. Peter’s + 8.5 vs. North Carolina: I admit that when I took St. Peter’s plus the points against Kentucky in the first round, I didn’t know who a single player was on the team and only went on the overall stats that said they were a Top 30 defense and the assumption that Kentucky would be looking past the Peacocks. However, we’ve all seen them play now and I’m surprised this line is still this high after how St. Peter’s went toe-to-toe with Kentucky and Purdue as well as Murray State. North Carolina is obviously playing its best basketball of the season – spurred by the momentum gained in beating Duke in Coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Arena, but gimme the points.
Canadiens-Devils 1P Over 1.5 -145: For those who still enjoy playing these, we’ll trust the Devils again based on their season-long stats despite losing with them on Saturday. If looking for a team to add in a parlay, we like Avalanche-Wild and Panthers-Maple Leafs as hopefully these top 1P Over teams do better Sunday after falling short yesterday.
Good luck today (and every day!).