Alabama earns raves for recruiting class

NCAA Football Betting Lines

02/01/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alabama has the top recruiting class in the country, according to Rivals.com, after getting written commitments from 18 football players on National Signing Day.

The players who signed national letters of intent Wednesday joined eight mid- year enrollees to make up the 2012 signing class for the reigning BCS national champions.

The Crimson Tide have a strong overall group with 14 four-star student- athletes and three five-star players, including Rivals.com's second-rated running back, T.J. Yeldon.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban, while happy with the results, cautioned the perils of bringing in such highly-regarded talent.

"I say this every year, but recruiting is not an exact science," Saban said. "No one knows for sure how these players are going to develop in the future. That's certainly something we work hard on here, as coaches and teachers, is to help these players develop."

Texas, coming off another disappointing season that saw the Longhorns go 8-5 and 4-5 in the Big 12, had Rivals.com's second-rated class with 28 signees, including two five-star commits.

Florida, Ohio State and Stanford rounded out the top five, with the Cardinal building off back-to-back BCS bowl appearances by welcoming three five-star recruits in defensive end Aziz Shittu and offensive linemen Kyle Murphy and Andrus Peat.

"We are excited to welcome one of the best recruiting classes in school history," said Stanford head coach David Shaw. "We say that not because of how high this class is rated, but instead because of the combination of ability, intelligence, toughness and character in this class."

Rivals.com's No. 1 ranked player, 6-foot-6 wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham, is staying close to home after the Springfield, Missouri, native chose to attend Missouri.

Florida State, Michigan, USC, Miami-Florida and Oklahoma ranked No. 6 through 10 according to the noted recruiting website.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

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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