UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman dances in celebration after defeating Colby Covington in a welterweight title fight during UFC 245 at T-Mobile Arena Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019.
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Football season is finished, but betting goes on.
The Super Bowl boosted Talking Points’ bankroll with a combined 7-3-1 record in two prop pieces and it’s only right to keep the positive momentum rolling by forging ahead with a new version of the weekend betting column. Sunday Sweats finished with a 67-62-2 record and a $2,210.43 profit assuming a $100 wager on every play, helping overwhelm the preceding, up-and-down Five sports, five bets series that finished 28-26-1 for a $118.51 loss.
I’m morphing the two together going forward and will stick to a similar format until resetting going into next year’s football season. Expect a handful of bets on different sports every Saturday, ranging from single games to futures and point spreads to exotics.
Read this week’s weekend wagering guide below. Records are attached individually by sport, with the cumulative at the bottom of the page, with the monetary figure calculated by the assumption of a bettor placing a $100 wager on each pick. Any picks outside of the column will be linked and included in the record total. Odds are the best currently available in Las Vegas at publication time.
Golf (4-2-1, $124.89): Patrick Cantlay -135 vs. Paul Casey in third round at Pebble Beach Pro-Am (BetMGM)
Cantlay is playing as well as any golfer in the world right now. One mediocre round, a 1-over par performance Friday at Spyglass Hills, doesn’t change that. This weekend’s PGA Tour event now centralizes with the whole field at Pebble Beach, and there’s no one I’d rather back at the location than Cantlay. The UCLA graduate is two days removed from shooting a 10-under 62 there, and while he’s unlikely to go that low again, his strong play likely isn’t done at the famous oceanside course. Casey is playing well in his own right, having won a European Tour event in Dubai two weeks ago, but some decline might be coming after the way he’s traveled across the globe since the start of the year. Cantlay has been building towards this moment and should be closer to a -150 favorite against anyone in the field in a round-by-round head-to-head.
NHL (3-2, $104.54): Tampa Bay Lightning -130 at Florida Panthers (Circa Sports)
Real imaginative to jump back into hockey betting by taking the defending Stanley Cup champions and what’s possibly still the best team in the league, right? Yeah, it feels a bit cowardly, but at this price, the Lightning are hard to pass up. This line feels like an overreaction to the Panthers’ 5-2 victory on Thursday. Tampa Bay came out with a key injury to Steven Stamkos, which is concerning but not enough to drop the line by 20 cents. The Lightning closed -150 ahead of the first game at the Panthers, and the number still deserves to be in that range.
Mixed martial arts (4-6, -$379): Kamaru Usman to beat Gilbert Burns inside the distance at UFC 258 +255 (Circa Sports)
Usman, the UFC welterweight champion, may not have the electric style or charisma of some of his belt-holding counterparts but he deserves to be in the conversation of best fighters in the world. That’s no hyperbole. The fight with Burns looks like a mismatch, and it’s not being priced like one with Usman holding at less than a -300 favorite. That’s worth betting on its own, but let’s go for a bigger payout here hunting for an Usman stoppage. Contrary to popular belief, Usman has a good chance at the stoppage. He’s taken some heat for having only one stoppage in his last six bouts, but it’s important to note that five of those fights were inside the UFC’s bigger octagon. Finishing rates are higher inside the smaller cage, which the promotion will utilize for tomorrow’s pay-per-view at its Apex facility. Usman’s striking power is underrated — see Colby Covington’s broken jaw — and there won’t be enough room for Burns to hide from it.
NASCAR (6-4, $250,24): Ricky Stenhouse Jr. +120 head-to-head vs. Bubba Wallace at Daytona 500 (Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook)
Buckle up for this one; it could be a bumpy ride. Stenhouse is known for wrecks and that’s a distinct possibility at Daytona, but he’s also had one of the fastest superspeedway cars for the past several seasons. Wallace may have that upside now that he’s anchoring Michael Jordan’s foray into motorsports and aligned with Joe Gibbs Racing, but there’s no reason to believe he’s there yet. There’s no reason he should be a favorite over Stenhouse, let alone this big of one.
College basketball (0-0, $0): Villanova to win NCAA Tournament 15-to-1 (William Hill)
All the talk of the traditional powers being down in college basketball this season seems to overlook Villanova, which have absolutely proven it belongs in the group. The Wildcats have won two of the last four NCAA titles and will have a chance to add another in the next couple months. They have an extremely solid and complementary starting five and won’t be out-maneuvered by anyone with the way Jay Wright has risen to becoming one of the best coaches in the country. Gonzaga, Baylor and Michigan may deserve to have lower odds than Villanova but no other team does. With sports betting’s next massive event rapidly approaching, Villanova offers the most value.
Kyle Busch drives during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020, in Las Vegas.
Bonus pick — Kyle Busch to win Daytona 500 at 16-to-1 (Circa Sports)
Let’s make this for a half-unit, so $50 for accounting purposes. A Daytona 500 victory has eluded Las Vegas’ own Kyle Busch throughout his career, but it might be within sight this year. The younger Busch brother won Tuesday’s Busch Clash at Daytona, a kickoff exhibition to start the season. He appears set for a rebound season with new crew chief Ben Beshore at the helm. There’s a lot of volatility at Daytona, but Busch may still be the best driver on the circuit and should be priced among the favorites instead of in the mid-tier.
Weekend betting column year to date: 95-88-1, $2,091.92
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.
