Fans of the Toronto Raptors might as well get used to watching college hoops as the NBA doesn’t appear to be any closer to a lockout resolution, and one of the teams that Toronto fans should be watching is Syracuse as the Orangemen aim to reach the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off against Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech Syracuse Odds – Wednesday, 9:30 PM ET

The Hokies (3-0) got a huge night from Dorenzo Hudson in a 78-63 win over Florida International, and a Bodog review may tell you that they’ll need a similar performance if they want a chance to upset the Orangemen. Hudson poured in 31 points as the Hokies shot 51.9% from the field, and they outrebounded the Golden Panthers 33-23. Dorian Finney-Smith posted 14 points, 10 boards and five assists for the Hokies, who are aiming to get back to the Tournament for the first time since 2007, and only the third time since 1996. Pay per head odds aren’t giving them much of a chance, but a win over the Orangemen would be a huge boost for Virginia Tech, who are a scrappy defensive team.

The No.5 Orangemen (4-0) rolled to a 92-47 dismantling of Colgate, and they didn’t look like a team distracted by recent allegations against assistant Bernie Fine. Dion Waiters came off the bench to score 16 points, while another sub, James Sutherland, added 14 points and four steals for the Orangemen, who shot 49.2% from the field while holding Colgate to 34%. They also went 20-of-30 from the foul line, while Colgate was only 3-of-6 as Syracuse took care of business heading into this game against the Hokies, and they need a performance to show they’ll be a force to reckoned with this season.

Syracuse should be the favored team with your price per head bookie, as they’re 3-0 SU in their three meetings with the Hokies. However, Virginia Tech has covered the spread in all three meetings and any spread over 15 points should be a concern. The Hokies have the defense to give the Orangemen problems, but Syracuse’s matchup 2-3 zone is difficult for anyone to break down and the Hokies may not have the athletes to keep up. Virginia Tech needs Hudson to be at his very best and someone else to step up; that someone could be Finney-Smith. The Hokies also aren’t a great shooting team from the perimeter, and if you can’t hit the outside shot against the zone, you’re in for a very long day. It may be close for a half, but with a homecourt advantage given that the preseason NIT is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, go with Syracuse to cover the NCAA basketball betting spread.

For those that love the game, there really isn’t anything like the college basketball season, a unique blend of emotional highs and lows with the rise and falls of the biggest stars and biggest programs culminating in one final month of absolute madness after which only one team stands champion. The college basketball season kicked off in style this past week with the incredible Carrier Classic on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson, a true tribute to everything that is incredible about the patriotism and appreciation for what those that fight for freedom have provided. That atmosphere and presentation will be hard to top as the season gets underway, and as we look ahead to everything that the coming sports betting year will bring for the game.

It seems as though in college basketball there are always a ton of those moments that people will never forget. One of those this season will likely happen this coming weekend, with Duke Blue Devils’ head coach Mike Krzyzewski set to move ahead of the legendary Bobby Knight for the most all-time 5 dimes reviews wins. The two are currently tied at 902, and adding to the atmosphere for the possibility of the historic achievement this weekend will be the presence of Knight at courtside to call Duke’s game against the Michigan State Spartans in the first game of the Champions Classic. There may not be a better setting for coach K to get it done than at Madison Square Gardens, coming off of an ACC championship, and right in front of his former head coach and the man he will pass.

While coach K will undoubtedly be in the coaching spotlight, the Ohio State Buckeyes and North Carolina Tar Heels will get a ton of attention through the first few weeks as potential national champions. The Buckeyes will bring back superstar Jared Sullinger, along with William Buford and Aaron Craft, who are expected to form one of the better trios in the sport this pay head season. Those three are a big reason why the Buckeyes are ranked No. 3 in the country to open the season, and some feel that Sullinger alone has the potential to be the type of game-changer that can make the difference. While Ohio State will rely heavily on Sullinger, the Tar Heels will look to the trio of Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, and John Henson. Those three combined for 64 points and almost outscored Ashville on their own in their second win of the season, and while they won’t face many tough tests in the early going, these next two months will be used by Roy Williams to build the chemistry and confidence that a true champion needs.

It is still early on and anything can happen the rest of the way, one of the great things about the college basketball season. Coach K, the Tar Heels, and Buckeyes, are just three things to look forward to in a year that should be full of excitement, and with it looking more and more like there won’t be an NBA 5 dimes review season, at least basketball fans will have something they can rely on.

It’s no Bet Online scam if you read a preview of Friday’s NCAA hoops contest between North Carolina and Michigan State and find out it’s on an aircraft carrier: it really is on the flight deck on the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego in honor of the military on Veteran’s Day. It is also a rematch of the 2009 national-title game, where the Tar Heels rolled to a championship and they come into this game as the No.1 team in the preseason rankings.

Michigan State North Carolina Odds – Friday, 7:00 PM ET

A Bodog review of last season will show that the Spartans weren’t the powerhouse you usually expect from Tom Izzo’s teams, and they stumbled into the NCAA Tournament where they lost to UCLA in the “second” round (the play-in rounds are now considered the first round). The Spartans may be more inclined to go inside to Draymond Green and Derrick Nix as Kalin Lucas has graduated, but forward Brandon Wood is a highly-touted freshman that gives the Spartans some flash. Keith Appling and Travis Trice will share the point-guard position, but they’re no Lucas and that is going to be the major hurdle. There isn’t much expected of the Spartans this season, and maybe that is a good thing.

The No.1 Tar Heels are the price per head favorites for the national title, and for good reason. All five starters from the team that lost to Kentucky in the Elite Eight are back, including forward Harrison Barnes and guard Kendall Marshall, two sophomores who may go into the lottery (Barnes would have been a lottery pick if he had come out after last year). North Carolina also has John Henson and Tyler Zeller, giving the Tar Heels a huge edge in the post. A group of freshmen gives the team depth, and watch out for P.J. Hairston, who will push Dexter Strickland at the shooting-guard position.

Expect North Carolina to be the pay head favorites in this contest, and they’ve won five in a row over Michigan State, including four straight in the Tournament. It’s going to be a tough hill to climb for the Spartans, who have to play No.6 Duke in their next match, and while Izzo knows it’s going to be a struggle, his team will be better for it. As for Roy Williams and North Carolina, they’re looking to come out and make an early statement on a nationally-televised game on an aircraft carrier. All eyes are on the Tar Heels and they should be able to roll if they play like they did in the second half of last season, especially Marshall and Barnes. Take North Carolina in your sports betting picks.

While most of the sports betting audience continues to voice their opinions and desire for both the NBA and its players to come together and get a deal done, perhaps there is a better method for them to get what they want. After all, it has been months that both sides have repeated what they want with only one side attempting to negotiate on their position, so in this type of a stalemate, is there really any alternative? Perhaps the best option of all would be for fans, media, and those that are involved to simply let them play their game, while fighting for those that will be hurt the hardest, like the team staff and the operators that work at the arenas around the association.

After all, they are the ones that are the most affected by it. While Mark Cuban continues to look at his business portfolio and sit back on the millions of dollars that he has made, and the players explore their options overseas and in charity games, there are thousands that will fight for work without the pay head chance to go to work for the organizations that they have done so much for over the years. It is them that once again don’t seem to have a voice in the whole debate, while the players and owners continue to rely on cheap rhetoric to insinuate that the opposing side is solely to blame when the fact remains that both sides are at fault. The thought of allowing billions of dollars to evaporate over a two-percent BMI struggle is simply unbelievable, and the only reason that either side is in position to abuse such a situation is because of all of the time and money that the fans have put into the game over the years.

While families can hardly afford to pay for both food and shelter and thousands across the nation are relying on food stamps to just get by, Kobe Bryant is considering making a couple of millions more to go overseas and play the game while the concession stand worker from the Staples Center is looking for a job. It is this kind of lack of discretion or caring that is what makes people so upset, and yet the more the fans seem to respond to the lack of progress the less that either pay per head side seems willing to conceded.

The scariest intertops part about it all may be that while the lockout has done so much to hurt the fans and the employees affected by the stoppage, once a deal gets done it won’t be unlikely for everyone to support the game with even more affection. The NBA was at the height of its popularity for this millennium before the lockout occurred, and while the best thing may be for fans to just let go and turn the other way, when it is all said and done the negative residual effects of the lockout may once again be overlooked.

Those who write a Toronto Raptors blog probably have a lot of time on their hands in the face of the NBA lockout, for which there is no end in sight after some meetings last week, and the loss of the entire season is not only possible, it’s probable at this point.

The preseason and the first two weeks of the season were lost, but even some who make NFL picks were hoping that the two sides could close the gap on their differences. After meeting with a mediator last week, the owners and players weren’t able to come to any agreement and commissioner David Stern has cancelled two more weeks. This means that 102 games have been cancelled in total and the calendar is empty until at least November 28th. There have been no meetings scheduled between the two sides, and right now, the Christmas Day schedule is in real danger of being wiped out. This means price per head services on Christmas Day will be a lot less busy as the NBA’s slate of games on that holiday is an annual tradition and the league’s biggest stars are usually in action.

Both sides are to blame for the probability of a cancelled season as it seems that is now down to a matter of stubbornness. Neither team is winning the battle for public relations as the fans are basically seeing two wealthy sides arguing over how to split it, and in this day and age of another possible research, the owners and players are really playing with fire. Price per head sports fans will tell you that the NBA doesn’t have the luxury that the NFL has; fans would have gone hysterical without football. But right now, fans have the NFL, college football, the NHL is starting and the World Series is winding to a close. They’ll find something to watch, but can they get those fans back when they resume?

Players have been setting up charity games to try and stay active, as well as to attempt to sway the public, which may work in the short run among those who are watching the game, but these games aren’t being televised, so the public is still largely against the players, although as we said before, both sides are to blame. A lack of urgency is apparent in both sides as they should have been negotiating this during the last season; instead, they decided to wait and not take light off the spectacular NBA season that was going on, but they now they risk losing all the momentum from one of the most fascinating campaigns in the history of the league, and the big losers in all this are the fans, from casual fans to online betting players.

With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and the livelihoods of not only those that play the game but those that are part of the game up in the air, the ongoing NBA labor negotiations have really hit hard as an absolute disgrace to professional sports. This isn’t the first time that a labor stoppage has taken its toll on the sports betting landscape, but in the wake of economic unrest and in a day where thousands are fighting off pink slips, there is a certain disturbing vanity that has become that much more apparent as the NBA owners and players prepare for the possibility of more games being cancelled. The two sides have now turned to notable mediator George Cohen in hopes that he can help move the process along, but with such a wide gap between the owners and players the likelihood of establishing any significant ground still appears to be some time away.

The fact that it has gotten to this pay head point before a mediator has stepped in is perhaps the most troubling part of the entire process, as both sides seemed far too content to allow the lockout to have an effect on the season. Unlike in the NFL where the union and owners both made significant concessions and remain united throughout the process, the players and owners have each taken significant missteps that have shone a light on their respective selfishness. There is a certain amount of ignorance and greed that comes with the idea of Kobe Bryant making millions of dollars in Italy while his former teammates and Staples Center employees remain desperate for work, yet when he is approached by the idea he will blame the owners. In response, the owners keep talking about their desire for a fair deal, when it was them and the predecessors that arranged for the current deal, and their own ineptitude that led to the massive amounts of money that they lost. The only people that are really hurt are the ones with no say in the matter, which reaches beyond the fans to those that work behind the scenes at arenas and on the road with the teams. The owners and prominent players remain content with playing the blame game and relying on the millions of bookie software dollars they have made over the years, while the rest suffer.

On the 110th day of the NBA lockout, the sides remained locked in on the 53-percent revenue slice that they want and the opposing salary cap systems, with commissioner David Stern threatening to cancel games leading up to the new year. The first two weeks of the regular season have already been gassed, and it won’t come as a surprise when more cancellations are announced. The NBA owners and players have shown an extreme lack of conscious and regard in their intertops discussions to this point, and the result has been an absolute disgrace to professional sports.

If you’re writing a Toronto Raptors blog, you probably have a little more time on your hands than you would at this time of the year and it doesn’t look like business will pick up anytime soon. The first two weeks of the regular season have gone down the drain, and it doesn’t look promising that the two sides are any closer to a solution; they may be further away.

Commissioner David Stern announced on Tuesday that the first two weeks of the schedule has been wiped clean, claiming that 13 hours of negotiations between the two sides failed to stir up any answers or even optimism. There is a solid chance that you won’t be seeing any BetOnline reviews when it comes to the NBA all season, because Stern said that there is a very good chance that the entire campaign is in real danger of being scrapped. Union leader Billy Hunter claims that the owners have been planning this all along and that the union is still together in their willingness to improve their deal. The stubbornness of both sides make the pay per head odds of actually having a regular season to be slim, and some are even saying none at all.

At the heart of it is the luxury-tax system, which the players see as a hard cap, while the owners are claiming that their concession of an actual hard cap shows that they’re willing to give things up. Another sticking point is how the two sides will split up basketball-related income (BRI); the players were at 57% in the old deal and are willing to scale it back to 53%, while the owners threw a 50/50 split on the table, but have since reverted to their first offer of 47%. Between these two aspects of the negotiations, it is highly unlikely that we see NBA basketball before January at the earliest.

So what should you do as a price per head sports fan? Check out the NCAA basketball slate, so you can at least be knowledgeable about the next generation of stars who will eventually find themselves in the NBA. While everyone is waiting for North Carolina-Kentucky on December 3rd, there is also North Carolina-Michigan State on November 11th (on an aircraft carrier, no less), Kansas-Kentucky, Florida-Ohio State and Duke-Michigan State on November 15th, Duke-Ohio State on November 29th, and Ohio State-Kansas on December 10th. This is just a few of a solid number of non-conference games to take you up until New Year’s, when Louisville and Kentucky stage another edition of their legendary rivalry. Don’t worry, hoops fans: there is still plenty of basketball left to wager on when you’re sports betting online.

NBA players could be looking at fishing maps and starting to plan trips, because it doesn’t look likely that a season will be played this year, and in fact, it seems like each time the two sides get together, they get further apart, and that is awful news for professional hoops fans.

Both sides have come out and claimed to be united as the NBPA revealed that they thought there was a rift between the owners, while the owners said the same about the players. It still appears that the major issue is a hard salary cap, but there are conflicting reports that the two sides are between $800 million and $1.2 billion apart when it comes to sharing revenues, and it keeps going up. The best sports betting sites in the industry still have odds up for the NBA season, but the odds of there actually being a season are getting worse with each passing day.

So, more players are making their way overseas, such as Denver’s J.R. Smith, who will be playing in China and he’ll be playing the entire season as his contract won’t allow him to return to the United States if the lockout ends before his contract does. You’ll likely see more players making their way overseas, but in North America, betting players should focus on the college game so they can get a headstart on the 2012 draft. Don’t expect to see any actual NBA game matchups for a while in your online sports betting book.

Even those who play shark fishing games have been paying attention to the lockout in the NBA, and it’s probably not going to be settled anytime soon as the two sides have even gone to the bargaining table just once or twice since the work stoppage began on July 1st. So how will sports betting players who follow the NBA turn to?

Some may choose to play poker online, but if you still want to watch some hoops, turn to the NCAA, where you will get a jump on seeing who will be the top picks in the next draft. While the quality of basketball is obviously not as good as the NBA (people have even argued that the one-and-done era has diluted the league), you will not get the passion from the NBA that you get from the NCAA. Most of these players will never play basketball professionally and they leave it all out on the floor every single night.

Then you head into the NCAA Tournament, which is, hands down, the best tournament in all of sports. The only event that comes close is the World Cup, but that’s every four years. In terms of North American sports, the Tournament is fantastic to watch, although it can be a headache for betting players due to all of the upsets in the early rounds. But if you want to scratch your hoops itch, college basketball is the best play at your favorite sports betting sites.

MLB baseball betting players know how much a lockout can affect a sport, and the NBA is in real danger of losing a large portion of their fanbase because of this lockout that doesn’t even look like it’s going to end any time soon. NBA players have to start searching for other avenues to continue their careers, and the most popular option could be to go overseas, where they’ll surely raise the status of basketball among sports betting players.

Deron Williams started the exodus when he signed a deal to play in Turkey during the lockout, and he has stipulations in his contract that states he can go back to the NBA when the lockout ends. Now, you have players like Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant and many others who are looking into the possibility of heading overseas while the work stoppage is going on, and they’ll likely hope to get similar deals to Williams that allows them to leave and head back to the NBA.

This would be major for a couple of reasons: one, it would raise the profile of basketball even more outside of the United States, although it is already at an all-time high, but it wouldn’t hurt, especially with Yao Ming (one of the largest global icons outside of North America) retiring in the offseason. Also, it would help the athletes raise their profile in other countries, which would open up different financial opportunities for them. Watching where some of these big names wind up may be more entertaining than actually betting on the games.