Rob’s Best Bets: BBL Championship – 10th March
Well done to any of you lucky punters who went out and plumped on Sheffield yesterday!
I’ll be shocked if you did, because pre-game I could only find odds on a Lithuanian site (21/4 for Sharks win), yet live on Sky Sports 2 and Sky Sports 2 HD, someone said you could get 10/1?
Somewhat doubt it, as the only odds going were eventually in-play on Paddy Power!
Anyway – well done Sheffield, huge victory on the scale of things considering the odds were stacked against you, with Williams out, but Holmes was put to devastating effect all game! It could’ve been more but for Riders getting lucky with a couple more threes than usual according to their 3pt% form.
Back to today’s betting, Friday night was a write off bar the Worcester HT/FT betting. And WOW for Surrey Heat? Who’d have thunk it huh?
Well both those sides return to the court tonight against North West opponents, first up, Wolves travel to Chester to face Cheshire Phoenix.
Phoenix are bolstered by the return of Jerome Gumbs and Chez Marks, and that will be music to the ears of Nix fans, as the absence of both men ruined their BBL Trophy run, albeit with good reason for their non-participation. UKAmericanSportsFans.com would like to extend the thoughts of everyone here to Chez Marks and his family in recent weeks.
With these two key players suited up again, it will add more fire power to the side that pushed Surrey Heat to the limit last Sunday, in a game many thought could have been a blowout.
However, the remaining Phoenix players prevailed and only lost by nine, but the intensity required this week can be split between two more pairs of legs, and not see a forty minute performance needed for four players.
Worcester got themselves the win over Leicester in the Trophy semi-final second leg last week, but it was not enough for Paul James’ side to make it to Glasgow.
Riders’ Andrew Sullivan marked out Arnas Kazlauskas and his physicality in a game as being an issue after last week, and Wolves may need to look at that again to get them over the line in what will no doubt be a tighter affair than the previous game between the sides earlier in the season when Cheshire were on the end of a 39 point demolition.
Worcester start off as clear odds on favourites, but something in me suggests that this weekend isn’t over for upsets.
Cheshire to win – 19/10 at BetVictor
Moving swiftly on to Mersey Tigers’ travels down to Surrey.
Speaking with Chris Bigley and Tony Walsh post game on Friday night, they want to be after Heat, every game is capable of being won if they go to work hard.
Surrey will be bouncing after their shock 100-94 win over Newcastle Eagles, a third straight home defeat for the reigning champions, who took their foot off the gas somewhat in the final quarter against Tigers.
Surrey stopped what Newcastle were good at, a strong first quarter, and how they did it in style too. This game, the only thing Surrey have to stop Mersey getting is belief.
Problem being is, as I write this, an hour ago Tigers were stuck just outside Holmes Chapel after their bus had its own blowout, hopefully not an ominous sign!
Mersey also are without “Big-it-up” Bigley, who when they were just five points away from beating Durham on Friday night, was dancing almost in the bleachers with the crowd to carry on being their sixth man.
For me, I can’t see this being winnable for Tigers. It could be close, but on recent form, and for most of the year, there’s been “The Fold”. That’s where my problem lies in this game, just where will “The Fold” come from tonight?
And it could be from anywhere, however, if Tigers don’t get the start right, it effectively could be over in ten minutes which is the worry.
Play the game for 20 minutes and get some huge value on this one because of Surrey’s potential ease up after Friday night…
Surrey to be leading at HT by 17-20pts – 9/2 at William Hill
Cracking value, as I can’t see it going over the 20pt mark after twenty minutes, but two periods of winning by 8 to 10 points is very realistic.
