R.I.P. 2007

Here's what you missed while you were drinking yourself into oblivion(New Years Eve) and recovering from a brutal champagne and whiskey hangover(New Years Day)

• Despite a career high 36 points from LaMarcus Aldridge, the Blazers were unable to extend their streak to 14 games Monday night and lost to the Jazz 111-101. Despite their 13 game win streak, the Blazers are still only 3-10 on the road, while the Jazz are 11-3 at home. The Blazers are in Minnesota tonight to take on the T-wolves in what will hopefully be their 4th road win of the year.
• Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and Shot at Love with Tila Tequila are back already for their second season so there will be no shortage of so-shitty-it's-awesome reality tv in 2008.
• Robbie Maddison set a new world record in Las Vegas for a distance jumped on a motorcycle. 40 years to the day after Evel Knievel crashed while attempting a 151' jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace, Maddison landed a 322' jump over a football field, breaking the old world record of 307'. Immediately after the first jump, Maddison decided to try again, and once again landed safely, but was unable to beat his first jump.
• In the NHL's first outdoor hockey game since 2003, the Penguins scored just 21 seconds into the game, but still needed a Sidney Crosby shootout goal to beat the Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo.
• Michigan proved once again it is the only Big 10 team capable of beating an SEC team in a bowl game when they beat Florida 41-35 in the Capital One Bowl. The nice thing about bowl games is that there are so many teams to follow, the public tends to rely on polls and the opinions of sports writers a little too much. This forces Vegas to push lines way out of whack to keep the betting even. This was a perfect case. All anyone remembers about Michigan this year is that they lost to App. State so the public gave them no chance against the defending champion Gators. At 10.5 point underdogs, Michigan was almost a sure thing. Since sure things aren't nearly as much fun though, I took it a step further and picked Michigan outright and despite their best efforts to throw the game away with red zone turnovers, Michigan finished on top and earned me a 3.3:1 payout.
• In another example of a mis-informed public giving us a great betting opportunity, we look at the Sugar Bowl between Hawaii and Georgia. This was one of the rarer cases of the public pushing the line toward the favorite. Everyone had convinced themselves that undefeated Hawaii got a raw deal by not getting to the National Championship game and were undoubtedly going to do to Georgia what Boise State did to Oklahoma last year and I got a great line of only 8.5 points.
• More on Hawaii. I know we all like to see these cinderella stories work out like they did last year with BSU, but lets be honest, that was a fluke. Yes Boise was good last year, but even against a seriously overrated Oklahoma team last year, they needed 3 trick plays and ALOT of luck to win that game. Hawaii this year was nowhere near as good as that BSU team and Georgia was an extremely good SEC team that snuck in under the radar this year(they had a legitimate claim to play the title game). Until the lesser conferences like the Mountain West start scheduling - and winning - non-conference games against the BCS conferences like the SEC, PAC10, Big 10, and even Big East, putting them in the National Championship game is like putting a JV team in against a varsity team in a high school state championship just because the JV team went undefeated against all the other JV teams.
• LSU by 4.5 points is the latest line in the title game next monday. I'll be seriously surprised if LSU doesn't roll over Ohio State by at least 10, and it'll probably be by at least 17.