So Heston and his colleagues analyzed 44,546 college basketball results, inside, outside, sideways. Shazam, they found no evidence of point-shaving.
Can we get a restraining order against both academics, prohibit them from getting within 94 feet of a basketball box score? Lock 'em in a padded room somewhere, juggling decimal points?
You have to admire Heston's diligence. Analyzed games where the point spread dipped, the logical place to look for scoundrels. Analyzed games where the point spread rose. Even analyzed games between schools so obscure (Winthrop vs. Gardner-Webb), no betting line was posted.
Heston used Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings to establish a mythical point spread, factored in a mythical four-point homecourt advantage. Used the end-of-season rankings. Holy Dick Vitale! The teams had already played, which contributed to the rankings. Isn't that double jeopardy? And how can you look for point-shaving evidence in a game that had no point spread?
Both professors started with a faulty premise, that the point spread is some kind of magic number, a carved-in-stone predictor of how the game should turn out.
"There's a public infatuation with Duke," explained Brandon Lang, the slick handicapper who appears on Comcast SportsNet. "So the linemaker builds that into the spread, makes it a point higher than it ought to be.
"It started with the Christian Laettner teams. Duke had a terrific run. It was that way with the Steelers for a while, that way with the Rams when Kurt Warner was there."
He grumped that "the wrong team is favored" when Duke opened as a 2 1/2-point pick over Villanova and made the 'Cats his best bet that night. 'Nova cruised.
