Home teams have pretty much dominated ATS thus far on Friday nights. If they were playing a Saturday at 3:30p UVA maybe would be +3, short weeks are weird for college kids and I think this moves the line.
I would not be shocked to see the Canes blow them out, 1st home night game of the season.
Well done. You know what is going on. One of the few sensible posts of the thread.
Short weeks absolutely move the line. It is adjusted in that direction to begin with, and then more often than not the bettors take it further in that direction. You supplied the ATS realities of Friday nights. It is a long term trend.
I really wish we had more articles and clips of behind the scenes at an oddsmaking session. I posted one link here years ago. It is so brief and simplistic. Not one syllable about matchups or team trends or any crap like that. The average is perhaps 30 to 45 seconds discussion per game. But Las Vegas is scared to have those videos available because their mystique would be gone in a flash. The conventional wisdom fans would be stunned. It is merely a handful of guys sitting around a table looking at their blended power ratings, which supply a consensus number.
Everyone at the table agrees with the consensus number, with minor variances of a half point or point. They discuss the variances briefly before the chief oddsmaker announces which one he prefers.
Then the only topic that dominates discussion of each game is whether or not there is any situational benefit to either side. That is what the sharp bettors prioritize so the oddsmakers know they have to be prepared and adjust in that direction. In this situation the short week was the situational variable. I absolutely guarantee the topic during setting the odds on this game was situational edge to Miami, and how much of a shift to make as a result.
Another topic that shows up all the time is which team has been drawing the money. They'll look at recent games and see if either of the two teams has a distinct trend in that regard. Often it makes no sense. But the oddsmaker will say something like, "They don't cover but the late money shows up on them every week so we might as well anticipate it and make them pay an extra half point from the outset."
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