Will small ball lead to big cash?

Duke backers keep your eye on early-season totals this year.

With a Blue Devils squad that is significantly smaller than it has been in years, Coach K is forced to play small ball, and I am banking on oddsmakers thinking a little too much about last year’s team.

See, last year Duke made me a lot of money, thanks to a tip I got from a fellow degenerate. “Pound Duke unders,” he said. “They can’t score for sh*t.”

I blindly took his advice, cashing in on five consecutive under plays and feeling great. I never understood why books had so much respect for the Blue Devil’s scoring when they filled the bucket for a mere 68.2 points per game in their first ten games, eight of those unders.

As time went on, books continued to give Duke totals like 141 ½ and 161, and I kept cashing in. Finally, after 18 games (and 13 unders), oddsmakers started releasing totals like 131 and 134 ½.

So will a low-scoring, boring Blue Devil squad be fresh in the minds of books everywhere? Or will they see that Josh McRoberts is gone, and besides Brian Zoubek, Duke has nobody over six-foot-eight?

Believe this, Duke will need to run to win this season, living and dying by the three-point bomb. I am pretty sure that you won’t see a 70.4 ppg stat this year, and if you see any totals like 126, or maybe even 132 in the first couple weeks, pound the over all the way to the bank!