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03/15/2010 -
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -Basketball still rules in Indiana. Even if the Hoosiers no longer rule basketball in the state
They're not even in the top three.
For the 20th time in the past three decades, at least three teams from the state of Indiana have made it into the NCAA tournament. For the first time, however, the Indiana Hoosiers were not one of those three.
They weren't even eligible.
Purdue, Butler and Notre Dame are all preparing for the tournament, which will end April 5 with the championship game in Indianapolis. Indiana is on spring break with nowhere to go.
Purdue (27-5) landed a No. 4 seed and will play Siena in Spokane, Wash., on Friday. Butler (28-4) got a No. 5 seed and will be trying to extend the nation's longest winning streak to 21 games when it faces UTEP in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday.
Sixth-seeded Notre Dame (23-11), which won six straight games before losing to West Virginia in a Big East tournament semifinal, will play Old Dominion in New Orleans on Thursday.
Hoosiers fans? It was the second straight season and the fourth time in the past seven years that they had no reason to turn on the NCAA selection show other than to see where their in-state rivals were headed. All Indiana coach Tom Crean could do Sunday was tweet about his hopes that the Hoosiers will be back.
``From the cornfields to the Capitol we are out and about today,'' Crean posted on his Twitter account. ``We need to get the guys added that can help us get back to Selection Sunday.''
He later added: ``Size, toughness and athleticism is the ingredients of the day.''
Crean has been urging Hoosier fans to support the Hoosiers, urging them to wear crimson and cream to high school games, tweeting: ``WE NEED TO ALL TAKE BACK THE STATE.''
Indiana hasn't been among the best teams in the state since Kelvin Sampson resigned because of recruiting violations two years ago. That left the Hoosiers with only eight scholarship players and one senior for the 2008-09 season, when they finished with a 6-25 record, winning just one Big Ten game, and posting the school's worst winning percentage in nearly a century.
This season, the Hoosiers had a big win against Pittsburgh and played well for half against Kentucky. But they also had an embarrassing loss to Loyola of Maryland, struggled against South Carolina-Upstate and narrowly avoided becoming the first squad in school history to lose 12 in a row.
Indiana lost by 15 points to Northwestern in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, ending the season at 10-21, including losses in 12 of its last 13 games.
Freshman guard Jordan Hulls, who was Indiana's Mr. Basketball a year ago, said afterward that it will be hard for the Hoosiers to watch the NCAA tournament on television.
``We know that we're a good team and we can play with a lot of other teams, and it's going to be tough seeing those other guys thinking we should be out there playing as well,'' he said. ``But like I said, we're just going to have to move on from this and try to get better.''
Guard Jeremiah Rivers, a transfer who was a backup at Georgetown, said he probably won't watch much of the tournament.
``This is the first time I've played and not gone to it. I was spoiled my first two years, and went to the Final Four with Georgetown,'' he said. ``It's not going to be the same thing. Missing the tournament hurts.
``Things can turn, you know. Look at North Carolina in the championship last year and not making the tournament.''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.
<< Kansas looms large in the Midwest
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Kansas Jayhawks began the 2009-10
college basketball season atop the preseason polls, and so far the voters have
been spot on, as the Big 12 champs will carry that top ranking into the NCAA
Tournam
<< Duke, Big East highlight South
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hours after winning their record 18th ACC
Tournament title on Sunday, the Duke Blue Devils were awarded the No. 1 seed
in the South Region in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.
Duke (29-5), backed by the triumv
<< Kentucky garners No. 1 seed in the East
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Kentucky, which
scorched the Southeastern Conference in the regular season and won the
conference tourney crown in a tense overtime contest, was named as the top-
seeded
<< Syracuse-Vermont rematch highlights West
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Despite losing in the quarterfinals of the
Big East tournament and staring at an injury to starting forward Arinze
Onuaku, Syracuse is the No. 1 seed in the West Region as the Orange head into
a much-
Arenas: 'I deserve to be punished' for gun prank >>
WASHINGTON (AP) -Gilbert Arenas says he deserves to be punished for bringing guns to the locker room.The suspended Washington Wizards guard tells Esquire magazine he wasn't using ``longevity thinking'' when he took out four guns in what he says was
Leafs-Oilers not what it used to be >>
Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There was a time when the Edmonton Oilers
playing the Toronto Maple Leafs on a Saturday night was a glittering affair.
In the 1980s, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Co. would come in to Maple Leaf
Gardens a
Devils hope to get on track versus Bruins >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Devils learned last time out that they can't take any
opponent lightly. New Jersey will keep that in mind tonight when it shoots for
a third straight win against Boston, while the Bruins try to avoid losing
their grip on
Blue Jackets host Oilers in meeting of disappointing clubs >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With both clubs headed towards disappointing finishes to
the 2009-10 season, the Edmonton Oilers and Columbus Blue Jackets face each
other for the final time this year tonight at Nationwide Arena.
Columbus made the postsea
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Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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