Piaad 3 Basketball

The world has gone mad over basketball and men’s collegiate basketball games are not exempted from this phenomenon. Unfortunately, the NCAA Basketball Live Feed service is feeding another phenomenon as well, which is betting on the outcome of each and maybe all the NCAA March Madness games.

Offhand, this wouldn’t be such a big problem because a) you can’t stop people from placing friendly bets on NCAA basketball games and b) if it doesn’t affect the outcome of the collegiate tournament, where’s the harm?

Part b is where the problem starts because small-time gambling and big-time gambling organizations can take advantage of the NCAA Basketball live feed to influence the outcome of the NCAA tournament – another phenomenon called “game fixing.” How does this work? It’s like this: suppose you’re a bookie and you know a lot of people are betting on a certain outcome of a game. Logically, you know that if all those people win because that one single outcome does become a reality, you – the bookie – are dead in the water because you have no funds to pay off all those winners. Even small bets translate to big winnings depending on the odds used per bet. For instance, if I pay $1 on a 20:1 outcome, that means if I win, I get $20 for my $1 bet. Now use your calculator – if 100 people bet $1 each on that one single outcome at 20:1 odds, then each of those people have to be paid $20 each in winnings. So that’s $20 x 100 people = $2000 total payout. Ouch! Even a small-time bookie would baulk at that situation. But that’s how gambling works. And a bookie that can’t pay up may find himself facing a mob with baseball bats eager to break his legs.

Unfortunately, the bookie is also afraid of someone else who will definitely break his legs if he pays up – the organization funding his small-time gambling organization. Even legal gambling organizations like casinos operate on the rule that the house has to win most of the time. Otherwise, where would the profit be in the business? So, how to get out of such a quandary?

This is where game-fixing comes in. Basically, game-fixing works when an NCAA player (or maybe even a whole team) is paid big bucks by the gambling operators to throw a game – meaning, the NCAA player or team will skillfully orchestrate a masterful loss so that the outcome dreaded by the bookie will not happen. If the outcome is a loss, all those people betting on a win need not be paid any winnings – and the bookie goes laughing all the way to the bank, having made his profits. This is the usual scenario behind game-fixing. You don’t usually see a bookie orchestrating game-fixing so the player or team will be able to win, because the odds for that happening are much harder to arrange.

Still, the value of NCAA Basketball live feed goes up in this situation anyway – because everyone can see how each and every player of each team performs. And when millions of eyes are scrutinizing your every move, it becomes rather hard to fake a losing shot convincingly.

Can game-fixing be eliminated by an NCAA Basketball live feed? Not totally. You would need to be able to prove equally convincingly that a player or team had really deliberately chosen to lose a certain game. Since that would be a very serious allegation, you don’t find many situations where an official or even a member of the public going out of their way to raise such charges. Still, the live feed does its part to minimize game-fixing considerably.

At least one team will come out of the Big South Conference and enter the NCAA Tournament this season, and the experts are starting to try to predict which team it will be. Who will win the Big South Tournament and move on to The Dance for a chance at winning the National Championship?  Will it be one of the front runners?  Will an underdog come from out of nowhere to take home this league’s crown?  No matter which Big South team makes it to the NCAA Tournament, you should get some NCAA Tournament tickets at StubHub.com to see them in action in March Madness. Now, let’s take a look at a few of the favorites in the Big South.

Coastal Carolina – Coastal Carolina’s Chanticleers have the best record in the Big South Conference, and they look as though they’re bound for an NCAA Tournament berth. Besides the mascot of this team, there are several other reasons to pick the CCU Chanticleers to move on into the second round of the NCAA Tournament. For one, they’ve played some tough competition.  Their second game of the season was against Duke, a team you might have heard about. While Duke wiped the floor with Coastal Carolina, we suspect the Chanticleers learned from valuable lessons, because after the Duke loss they went on a 15-1 tear. Later on in the season they tore through most of their conference foes, earning a 13-3 league record as of Feb. 21, 2010. With just two games remaining on the home game schedule—against Liberty and VMI, two teams they should beat—we like CC’s chances in March.

Winthrop – The Winthrop Eagles might just steal the limelight from Coastal Carolina this year, as they’re the No. 2 team in the Big South right now. Winthrop and CC split their season series this year, so they’re pretty evenly matched. Winthrop is a good defensive team, and they’ve played Clemson and Cincinnati this year, although both of those games ended in losses. Winthrop’s program has seen the NCAA Tournament before, and their fans would love a return to the March Madness action in 2010.

Radford – Radford’s winning conference (11-5) and overall records (16-11) give them some credibility, even though they’re currently behind the Chanticleers and Eagles in the standings.  Radford does not shoot the ball well—in fact they’re one of the worst teams in Division I NCAA basketball at three-point shooting and free throw shooting. But what they lack in finesse they make up for in brute strength and inside game. Artsiom Parakhouski Radford’s 6-foot-11 post presence, and Lazar Trifunovic is 6-foot-8 but plays like he’s three inches taller. This duo will give any opponent fits in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, provided Radford cam get an invitation to dance.

You can see the Big South Men’s Basketball Championship by getting some tickets at StubHub.com. The games will take place between March 2 and March 6.  This tournament should prove to be a fitting prelude to the action taking place all over the country when the NCAA Tournament begins.