In the National league the most intriguing Division looks to be the NL West. The San Diego Padres currently hold a two game lead over both the Colorado Rockies and the LA. Dodgers. The Padr ...  read more

The Heisman Trophy futures have been posted, and they give us a lot to think about. Anyone who pays attention to the Heisman process knows that the winner very often isn’t being talked about at all right now. That makes it even more fun to speculate and look at the odds that are available. 5Dimes has odds listed for 26 different players. Here’s a look at 10 of the ...  read more

By: Steve Merril

Below is a free MLB play with analysis for Monday afternoon:

GIANTS at BREWERS (-120) – 4:10 pm ET #952

Not an official play, but I would rate the Brewers as a light lean this afternoon.

San Francisco comes to Milwaukee after exhausting their bullpen in a 15 inning loss to Colorado late Sunday afternoon. The Giants hope tha ...  read more

Brett Favre just couldn’t handle being out of the news. Maybe it was all the attention everyone is paying to where LeBron James will play next year. Or maybe he was jealous because Phil Jackson, the second most diva-ish retirement fiend behind Favre, has been gaining headlines surrounding his indecision (although he re-signed with the Lakers yesterday). Or perhaps ...  read more

Below is a free MLB play with analysis for Sunday afternoon:

ASTROS at PADRES (Under 7, -110) – 4:05 pm ET #911-912

Not an official play, but I would rate the Under as a light lean this afternoon.

The Astros and Padres have had a pair of pitcher's duels the last two nights. They'll wrap up their series on Sunday afternoon in San Diego. Brett Myers g ...  read more

Our second team-by-team NFL schedule breakdown focuses on the second-place team from last season, the Indianapolis Colts. And other than death and taxes there seems to be one sure thing in life: Indianapolis winning at least 12 regular-season games, as it has done for a record seven seasons in a row.

In reality, the Colts haven’t lost a regular season game ...  read more

NBA Game of the Day – Lakers/Celtics (Game 5)

Line Move

The early money quickly came in on the Under as the oddsmakers opened the Game 5 total as high as 189½ and it quickly dropped to 187½ and 187 in most locations. It is not a surprise as the Under is now 3-1 in this series and 5-1 in all six meetings this season.

The oddsma ...  read more

NBA Game of the Day – Celtics at Lakers (-6, 190) By Steve Merril

Line Adjustment

The Lakers were a 5½-point favorite in Game 1 and they have now been installed as a 6-point favorite in Game 2 after their easy win on Thursday. Los Angeles led by 20 points entering the fourth quarter in their eventual 102-89 win and the oddsmakers have now adjusted the ...  read more

In the 2009-10 regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers finished seven games ahead of the Boston Celtics. From 1947 through the 2010 NBA Semifinals, when NBA teams led their best-of-7 playoff series opponents by seven regular-season games, they hav ...  read more

Has one player in NBA history ever controlled who his head coach would be more than LeBron James? Sure, Magic Johnson supposedly orchestrated Paul Westhead’s firing in the early 1980s and got him replaced with Pat Riley, but Magic was at least going to be a Laker for a while. The Cleveland Cavaliers don’t even know if James will be on their roster next year. Thus ...  read more

Current Odds

The oddsmakers have made a substantial adjustment on the both the side and total for Game 3. The Lakers were 6½ and 7½-point favorites at home in both Games 1 & 2, but now the Suns are a 2½-point home favorite. This 10-point adjustment is largely due to the fact that teams down 0-2 usu ...  read more

It’s time to make some World Cup group stage predictions with the start of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa just three weeks away. Be sure to check Doc’s Sports homepage each day leading up to the World Cup as we will be previewing many of the games in the tournament (with free betting picks, as well) and we will cover the tournament from every possible angl ...  read more

The Lakers finished exactly three games ahead of Phoenix. ...  read more

A - Ainge, Danny. Boston's GM learned a lesson he should already have known this week - you can't get away with anything in an era when everyone is watching everything you do. On Monday Ainge was having some fun at his team's game against the Cavs, and he threw a towel in the air to distract J.J. Hickson on a free throw attempt. It turned into a much bigger deal t ...  read more

NBA Game of the Day

by Steve Merril

Phoenix Suns at San Antonio Spurs (-3½, 207) – 8:05 pm ET (TNT)

Opening line

Despite trailing 3-0 in this playoff series, the early money quickly came in on San Antonio when an opening line was posted on Saturday morning. Oddsmakers initially made the Spurs a 2½-point home favorite and ...  read more

In the NBA regular season, the Phoenix Suns finished four games better than the San Antonio Spurs. From 1939 th ...  read more

The NFL Draft is in the books and there were, as always, plenty of successes and failures. As always, we won’t be able to accurately assess how each organization managed until about three or four years from now, but based on value, addressing need, and overall talent hauled in I have put together my 2010 NFL Draft grades.

In the meantime they overlooked a ...  read more

What we want to do is play on any NBA Playoff home team that is off back to back losses, if t ...  read more

In this piece we will look at a Last Home game system in the NBA and see if we can capitalize on some weak lines with some motivated teams who want to give their fans a big thank you for coming out, with one last big effort.

What we will look to do here is a touch on a solid system that goes all the way back 20 years to 1990, in search of a solid system that can help us beat the spread i ...  read more

By Matt Josephs for Steve Merril Sports

Baseball begins this week and below is a list of play-on and play-against pitchers for the 2010 MLB season.

Five Pitchers to back:

Wade Davis (Tampa Bay)

This 5th starter made six starts last year for the Rays going 2-2 with a 3.72 ERA on the season. Davis started his career giving up one run and three ...  read more

Despite the lack of NBA Draft lottery talent and the biggest-named teams, there are still a whole lot of reasons why this Final Four is at least as interesting as several we have seen before. At or near the top of that list is the set of coaches that are leading their teams into Indianapolis. There's a bit of everything here - from the legends to the future star. ...  read more

Northern Iowa did more than just pull off a miracle on Saturday night - they also exploded a stunning number of March Madness brackets. The stats are beyond belief - 98 percent of the 4.8 million people who filled in a bracket on ESPN.com had Kansas in the Sweet 16, almost 60 percent had them in the Final Four, and more than 40 percent had them winning it all. The ...  read more

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Eastern Conference

This could end up being a banner year for the Eastern Conference. It looks like the requirements to get into the playoffs in the East have just gotten a little stricter. Currently, the top eight teams in the East are all at least .500 ball clubs. That is something that could not have been said the last few years at the end of the regular ...  read more

Kansas is the best team in the nation, but there is not much value at 2/1 to win the NCAA Championship. Below are 3 long-shots that could make some noise next month.

West Virginia

Opened 15/1 Current 30/1

There is excellent value with West Virginia at 30/1 as their odds have doubled since the start of the season, due mainly to their recent two-game losing str ...  read more

I've analyzed the last five years of the mid-February mid-major hoops orgy known as Bracket Buster Weekend to see if I could establish any useful betting angles or trends. Instead of working over every single "official" Bracket Buster game I squared my focus on the ones that featuring the mid-major conferences that were routinely wagered upon. That includes the ...  read more

It was another great NFL betting season at Doc’s Sports and I couldn’t leave it without a wrap-up of thoughts on another excellent Super Bowl. So here is a special edition of the Ferringo Report on Super Bowl 44:

- Whenever I talk to people before the Super Bowl they still all say the same thing, “I just hope it’s a good game.” It’s as if the blowouts of ...  read more

Drew Brees Saints quarterback

Apparently, defense isn’t allowed in the NFL anymore.

This January we have seen a dizzying display of offensive artistry as points have been a-plenty through the 10 games that we’ve witnessed. And the two teams that have survived the splurging are – not surprisingly – the two best offensive clubs in the NFL, Indianapolis ...  read more

I'm a fan of the NBA, but it's not a sport that I follow as closely as others, and I don't handicap it very often. When there are sports that I'm not avidly following I find that I like to have little rules in my mind that I can use to quickly get a sense of how a team is performing - a snapshot of where they are at.

In the NFL, for example, I can get a sens ...  read more

We are well into college basketball conference play now, so teams have played more than enough games for us to get a sense of what they really are and how we should be dealing with them. Here's a look at 10 teams that have proven themselves trustworthy on totals so far this year - the ones that most consistently stay ‘under’ or go ‘over’. (‘over/under’ record follo ...  read more

Unlike the situation in the NFC, the AFC playoff picture is completely up in the air. Six AFC teams are on the outside looking in right now but each of those teams is well within striking distance. In the NFC, however, only three teams have a chance of crashing the playoff party. Besides the Colts, who not only have a playoff spot locked up, but also the divi ...  read more

Loyalty can be one of a gambler’s worst enemies. That’s why bettors should never – or at least rarely – wager on their favorite teams. They lose objectivity and are sometime blinded by their feelings about their teams.

Well, no time on the sports betting calendar puts loyalty to the test like college bowl season. This time of year I’m certain that colleg ...  read more

A - Ageless. Brett Favre just keeps getting it done. I fully expected him to be disappointing this year - last season with the Jets all over again. Instead, you don't even have to exaggerate to say that he is probably playing the best football of his career. He was virtually flawless on Sunday, completing 22 of 25 passes and connecting on four touchdowns as his V ...  read more

The more you read about trends and angles the more you can get confused with making a profitable NFL pick. Over the years I have been successful in utilizing trends and angles as a part of my NFL picks handicapping arsenal. One such slant on these trends that has been useful is that of the head coaches. Yes, the players are the ones who ultimately excute the coaches NFL picks game plan but i ...  read more

It used to be in the NFL that if you could run the ball you could dominate your opponent. The teams atop the NFL rushing leaders list were the same team atop the NFL rankings. Things have certainly changed.

The top four rushing teams in the NFL are the New York Jets, Tennessee Titans, Carolina Panthers and Miami Dolphins. All four teams are exactly 4-5 ...  read more

The team with the best chance this year to win the NBA championship is the defending champion LA.Lakers. The Lakers are loaded with talent once again. This year they have Ron Artest in the mix in a bold move to improve the team defensively. Departing is ...  read more

Over the course of the last few NFL Picks years there has been much talk about parity. In fact, for the most part, if you were a bettor who just loved to wager on the favorites you would have drained your NFL Picks bankroll and made your book maker very happy. However, this season has seen the reversal of fortunes. So much for parity as the NFL Picks favorite has dominated this season. With ...  read more

Game: Miami Dolphins (3-4, 3-4 ATS) at New England Patriots (5-2, 4-3 ATS)

Spread: Patriots -11.

Sure, the Patriots have looked like their old selves of late, friendly to backers and brutal to opponents against whom they have no reservations about running up the score until coach Bill Belichick is satisfied.

New England has won its past two games b ...  read more

LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavs.

After a long summer, the NBA gets underway again this week. For those of you who are hardcore fans and bettors of the league these are happy times. I, too, am happy to have it back, but the league doesn't particularly change my life. I'll put it this way - it would kill me to go 10 minutes without knowing what's going on ...  read more

A - Alabama. The Tide came into Saturday looking like the best team in the country. They still looked the same when the day was done. Their offense wasn't overwhelming against South Carolina - other than running back Mark Ingram - but it rarely is. Their defense was just as potent as always, though, and made for another easy win. The AP voters took note, and did ...  read more

The number of unbeaten teams in college football, currently at nine, will for sure dwindle by at least one on Thursday when Big East contenders Cincinnati and South Florida face off in Tampa. The Bearcats are currently 3.5-point favorites.

It’s a little hard to figure out what to make of either of these teams yet. Neither one has played a team currently r ...  read more

The most offensively impressive and dominant team in the NFL so far this year has clearly been the New Orleans Saints. We knew that they were going to be offensively strong, but they have so far been even better than expected, and they have been competent on defense as well. The bandwagon for this team is quickly getting crowded, and that means that the betting pu ...  read more

There’s no second-guessing which premier matchup takes the cake in college football’s second week. Southern Cal travels to Columbus to take on Ohio State at the Horseshoe, so there will be enough coverage of this Top-10 collision.

With that said, we’re going to take a peek at another key tilt, our matchup of the week pitting Notre Dame against Michigan ...  read more

If you like to play totals keep in mind that the Minnesota Vikings were 3-1 under the total in preseason. Sure, all the talk has been on Brett Favre and what he potentially can give them -- ...  read more