Ark-Pine Bluff beats Winthrop in NCAA opener

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

03/17/2010 -

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -When it mattered most, Arkansas-Pine Bluff turned into kings of the road.

Losers of their first 11 games - all on the road - the Golden Lions turned their first trip to the NCAA tournament into one worth the extra packing. Allen Smith made clutch 3-pointers on a night when shots wouldn't go down easily, setting up a 61-44 victory over Winthrop in the opening game on Tuesday night.

The Golden Lions (18-15) will play Duke, the No. 1 seed in the South Regional, on Friday in Jacksonville, Fla.

``It seems like we play better on the road than we do at home because we're so used to being on the road,'' said center Lebaron Weathers said.

He wouldn't have said that a few months ago.

The Golden Lions spent the first two months playing some of the country's best teams on the road, going everywhere and getting nowhere. They lost at Colorado, Denver, Texas-El Paso, Akron, Arizona State, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Kansas State and Oregon, leaving them 0-11 heading into 2010.

Players cranked up their iPods and let their music soothe them during 13-hour bus rides across the heartland in November and December, ones that bonded them for much better things in March.

``We think it brought them together,'' coach George Ivory said. ``You've got to stay together on the road. You get to know each other better. You go through some bumps and bruises on the road, playing in some pretty tough places.''

The basketball equivalent of boot camp hardened them for a Southwestern Athletic Conference season that would be kinder. Their next destination is with history - a chance to pull off the unprecedented first-round upset of a No. 1 team.

Ivory knows a little bit about that. He was a star at Mississippi Valley State, which kept up with No. 1 Duke in 1986 before falling 85-78.

``You see Duke a lot on TV,'' Ivory said. ``You see them so much, it's kind of like you just know what they're going to do.''

The fast exit was familiar for Winthrop (19-14), which has made the tournament nine times in the last 12 years but has only one victory in all those tries.

Winthrop got the type of game it wanted, but couldn't make a shot as another tournament slipped away. Charles Corbin scored 13 points for the Eagles, who shot 29 percent from the field and went 2 of 21 behind the 3-point arc.

``We picked a bad time to have a bad game,'' coach Randy Peele said. ``We played really frustrated. I hadn't seen that from us for a while.''

Neither team shoots particularly well - no player averages more than 10 points for either one. Instead, they win with tight defense and rebounding. These mirror-image teams settled in to slog one out on the NCAA's big stage.

Smith put the game in the Golden Lions' hands by hitting a pair of 3s that helped Pine Bluff pull ahead 37-31 in the second half. Smith held up his right hand in the ``OK'' sign - three fingers extended - after connecting from the left corner and the top of the key.

Soon, the lead was up to 14 points and the Golden Lions knew they'd be headed for at least one more faraway place to play a top team.

This time, they're doing it with a smile.

``It just means a lot,'' Smith said. ``It feels great.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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