By: @caddygambler
Now that April Fools Day is over, let’s get serious. I was never a big fan of April Fools to begin with because there are very few people who can pull off a great prank. One of those all-time pranksters happens to be my father. Back in high school, he pulled a prank that definitely crossed the line but man did it make be laugh. My sister wanted a puppy. Dogs are a lot of work my dad would say. We had a cat but cats are easy to take care of because they know where to go to the bathroom and they sleep 18 hours a day. Dogs needed attention. Now my sister would’ve been a great dog mom. She’d have three tests and two papers due the next day and she’d spend most of the evening trying to put the GoPro on the cat. She’d make the cat crafts for his birthday. It was weird but other than school and golf, animals ran her world that’s why the prank was so funny no matter how cruel it was. Now my sister was notorious for leaving dirty dishes in the dish washer and it made my father so pissed. So, April 1, 2008 rolls around and the battle of my dad vs. my sister started. Before school that morning, my dad called my sister out to the driveway. There was a cardboard box on the basketball court and my sister knew it had to be a dog. Our family had been talking about one for six months, so it made sense. I was even excited. Turns out underneath the cardboard was no dog but her dirty dishes from the night before.
Maybe laugh wasn’t the right word.
I feel like the right thing to do is take all dogs today. Here are my three favorite bets for Saturday, April 2.
Hornets +5.5 | 12:30 p.m. (CT)
Is Philadelphia the Jazz of the Eastern Conference? Tensions seem to be in high in the 76ers locker room after Doc called James Harden out in a press conference and Joel Embiid was talking trash about Doc’s rotations. All that noise has led to three straight losses and three straight non-covers. Gordon Hayward is back for Charlotte and not saying he’s going to make a huge impact, having him back gives the Hornets a jolt. I think Charlotte’s bench players can outplay Philadelphia’s. These teams have played three times this season and the Hornets have one win and lost the other two contests by a combined seven points. I think Charlotte can keep this close and when they do they’ll only have to drive an hour and a half home.
Toronto FC/New York FC u2.5 goals | 3 p.m. (CT)
Pace gets a lot of shit for not knowing soccer from the soccer guys at the network. Pace, here’s a play you can take today: Toronto FC/New York FC under 2.5 goals. Both teams are dealing with some injuries and Toronto’s offense isn’t great as they’ve failed to score over one goal in three of its first four games. The Blue Pigeons got shutout by Philadelphia last time out but are capable of scoring goals. However, they’ve only scored more than zero goals once in four of its MLS games. One of these teams is getting shutout tonight and the other team isn’t going to score more than two goals.
2-way teasers (+4): Duke PK, Kansas -0.5 or Duke ML + Kansas ML Parlay (+129)
I’ve been flipping back-and-forth on this all week. What I know is Duke is going to win and same with Kansas. I can’t remember if it was Bruss or Pace that said Duke is for sure getting to the title game but Coach K didn’t come this fair in his final season not to make the championship game, right? I believe that to be true. Injuries haven’t helped Final Four teams out either.
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Since 2010, there’s been five Final Four teams who had a player injured in the first four rounds of the tourney that had played 20 minutes or more in one game during the tournament.
That sentence has too many numbers in it. But only one of those five teams went on to win the ‘ship. Without Justin Moore, I think Kansas can get it done to set up a title matchup with Duke.
BOL, if you tail. @caddygambler
