Thursday, November 12, 2009
Alabama is going to win it all
Or at least they have a very good chance. That’s all I can conclude from the odds put on them to go all the way. Witness: Up until a couple days ago, Bodog had the Tide at 20-1, with only 11 teams having better odds. They since dropped them to 40-1, but there are only 20 teams better than that. BetUS currently has them at 15-1, where only eight teams are better. In what may be the most ridiculous proposition ever offered on a college hoops team, Bama is a cool 5-to-1 to make the NCAA title game at BetUS.
This pattern is repeated at other semi-reputable and semi-legal on-line establishments such as the World Sports Exchange, VIP, and sportsbetting.com. All this for a team that didn’t receive a single vote in either pre-season poll. Outside of JaMychal Green having a shot at making all-SEC first team, there’s nothing to suggest this squad has much more than a 50/50 chance of even making the tournament.
What could be causing this? At first, I thought that it must be wealthy Alabama alums just throwing away money in the name of school pride, but Alabama alums won’t even be paying attention to hoops until about the second week of January. Perhaps it’s that people think they are betting on football (Florida is rather highly thought of as well). Or maybe Anthony Grant’s coaching skills have a lot more value than I think.