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Roy, Miller help Blazers beat RaptorsBasketball Betting Lines02/24/2010 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brandon Roy poured in 20 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out five assists, as the Portland Trail Blazers held off the Toronto Raptors, 101-87, at Air Canada Centre. Andre Miller added 18 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds for the Blazers, who have won the first two games of a five-game road trip. Rudy Fernandez donated 17 points and seven boards off the bench for Portland, which was without center Marcus Camby because of a sprained right ankle. "Last week we were a little off balance after the All-Star break," Roy said. "Now were starting to feel a little more comfortable as a group. Scoring 100 points tonight showed that. Now we got to keep it going on this road trip." Hedo Turkoglu finished with 24 points for the Raptors, who had won two straight and five of six coming in. Jarrett Jack chipped in 18 points and eight assists. Andrea Bargnani added 15 points and six rebounds for Toronto, which had a franchise-best streak of 20 consecutive games with at least 100 points come to and end. The Raptors were without star forward Chris Bosh for a third straight game on Wednesday due a sprained left ankle. Down 62-54 with less than 7 1/2 minutes to go in the third, Toronto went on a 9-2 spurt to cut the deficit to one. Amir Johnson's deuce made it a 64-63 contest with 4:47 left. The Blazers went on a 9-0 run moments later to build a 12-point lead. Fernandez's pair of free throws made it 78-66. Turkoglu made a pair of foul shots at the end of the quarter to cut the gap to 10 heading to the fourth. The Raptors never got closer than seven in the fourth. "We just let them have too many easy baskets," Turkoglu said. "I don't know what their fast break points were tonight but we let them have too many easy points." The Blazers closed out the first quarter on an 8-2 spurt to take a 32-24 lead into the second. Ahead 36-31 with less than 8 1/2 minutes to play until half, Portland put together a 15-3 burst. Fernandez and Juwan Howard each tallied four points during the flurry, which Roy capped with a trey from the corner for a 51-34 margin with less than four minutes remaining. The Raptors fought right back with nine straight points to get within 53-47 at the break. Game Notes The Blazers shot 49.4 percent from the field, while the Raptors made 44.7 percent of their shots...Toronto turned the ball over 16 times, leading to 17 Portland points.
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Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Josh Smith poured in a season-high 27 points and 10 rebounds, and the Atlanta Hawks continued their recent dominance over the Minnesota Timberwolves with a 98-92 win at Philips Arena. Smith went an efficie
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL BETTINGNCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking. No. 1 always seems to fit USC. Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent. Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory. Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3. "We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team." Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time. "Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team." The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points. "I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won." Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State. "There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?" USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll. "It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter." While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls. As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule. But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference. Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com. The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road. The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second. The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia. No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday. Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee. Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina. Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson. The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996. South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20. The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24. Get free Sports Betting lines RSS feeds from top rated online sportsbook MySportsbook.com |
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