Best Of A Numbers Game | February 17, 2026

0:00Number's game on Fiesen, these sports betting network. It is a number game here on these sports betting network. Another shocking announcement here this morning will get to about 15 minutes, Kelly Biffin. Okay. There's the long tease for everybody out there. Look at you over here trying to sleep. I'm trying to sleep. Yeah, I'm trying to sleep. Look at your screen. You know, I guess what I hit it. I know. I hit it. I saw a golfer and I was like, well, this is something I want to know immediately. No, I hit it because I knew what you were going to do. Not allowed to sneak peak of it. I mean, you set up four screens. One of them is going to be pointing my direction. It's a try screen. Thank you very much. It is a try screen. I do not have four. However, if they could, if I could get a little fourth one up there, you've got plenty of room for three more on top. It really would go, well, how awesome would that be? Trying to think. You know what? It would even pass the television test. It wouldn't be too much. It would be blocking your face. I don't think so. And, you know, the, maybe the close up would look a little, the close up might look a little

1:03rough, but we have to go real tight. Yeah, but it's one of those things where I think it helps me bring the information a little bit better. So, you know, it is what if you get the, you get the Twitter on the one. That's what's normally. Yeah, you know, I get it. And then you got the odd screen winner run down like all the other stuff. Yeah. Well, we're going to ice man. Before we get to Jake, we're a quick guys. If you have not done so already, become a decent pro subscriber over there on vson.com. Get going for as little as $9.99. We got the bedding guide live today. Let's go. So, for $9.99, you come in for a month and you can get the bedding guide. So, you might as well just go ahead and do that because it costs more than that all a car killing the Berkster's masterpiece. So, go in Greg Peterson, obviously, on college basketball. And we've got a bunch of golf stuff that are coming a little later today from West. And, of course, some Olympic hockey takes from Jonathan Davis as well. So, again, right now, vson.com slash subscribe as little as $9.99 to get going. So, let's not waste any more time. The most handsome handy capper and all of hockey. Jake Han joining us here today. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great now. I will never get sick of that intro.

2:03So, I appreciate it. And I was up early this morning watching a little by Athalon, the men's relay. I always get up for that event watching a little curling as well. So, the Olympic juice start flowing. There was some hockey early this morning. We've got two quarter final set already for Wednesday, which should be a great day of hockey action and still two more qualification games to go today, guys. So, I'm doing great now that I'm talking to you. Oh, I appreciate it. But, Jay Han, four over there on the Twitter machine. Also, the fantasy hockey show and the point over on Series X. Yeah, absolutely. Love it. Jake, I don't want to mess around at all because we got a couple of those games starting here. What about 20 minutes? Denmark and Czech Republic. And then Latvia. It's Sweden later on. Chechiak, Kelly. Get it right. Chechiak. It's listed both. Sorry. We'll jump in both those games. Let's start with Denmark and Chechi. How about that? Yeah, so this might be the most entertaining of the qualification games today, guys. We have four games, four very heavy favorites. So far, it's gone to form Switzerland beats Italy quite easily. Germany beats France quite easily.

3:03We expected those teams to not really put up much of a fight. I think the one underdog here that could put up a potential fight is Denmark, who showed me quite a bit in this tournament so far. And the Czechs have been very disappointing. I think they do have some holes. Now, they also have some elite offensive talent up front. And that's why we do like the David Paschernak goal here. I think we should see some offense in this game where I think the Czechs are weak is on the blue line. I look at the blue line coming in. I did not like it. It is kind of held form. Now, they do have some some decent goal tenders. And that could be a strength of the Czechs here in a game like this. And possibly pulling off any upsets moving forward. But I like the over five and a half in this game, guys. I like Denmark to stay within the goal spread plus two and a half is the number I'm going with here. But if you want to get some plus money, you can play the plus one and a half. I think they could keep this game close. I do like Paschernak to score a goal on the Czech side and shop the number. But Nick healers to score a point in this game. So a goal or an assist. He's the top player for team Denmark in this game. Minus 130's the number I got.

4:03Shop it around because we're seeing some wild odds disparity across all sportsbooks when it comes to a little bit cocky right now. So make sure you shop these numbers as best as you can. Jake, are you applying that they don't have a ton of experience? I'm posting odds for a international hockey. I like it. The differences I've seen between sportsbook guys that we always obviously talk shopping numbers no matter what you're gambling on. But you know, usually we're dealing with a couple of cents here, a couple of cents there. And you are always trying to find that best number. But it has been crazy for Olympic hockey. You're seeing some books post numbers at minus 350 where other books have it at minus 125. And I'm thinking wow, this is just we're not even in the same ballpark here. So make sure you got a few different sportsbooks open when you're shopping some of this stuff. About four and a half hours after that, we will get Latvia in Sweden. This is currently wow minus 1050 on the Sweden side. At least over a draft games plus 675. If you like Latvia, what are you looking to hear in this one? I think Latvia can keep this relatively close guys. Now, so we expect Sweden to win this game and assuming Sweden does win this game,

5:06it sets up just a massive quarter final against the US team. And one of those teams going to be going out early in the quarter finals between Sweden and the US. So not the quarter final that either of them drew up now Sweden still has to win this game to get there. And I do expect them to do so. Although I think Latvia can put up a bit of a fight. They tend to be a team that can get some good goal tending can sort of muck things up in these tournaments. And at the very least not get blown out in these hockey games. And Sweden has been disappointing. It does feel like they found something maybe over the weekend. They beat Slovakia, but they didn't beat Slovakia by enough to win the group. It ends up being the slow Vax that take the group on goal differential. So I feel like maybe even though Sweden didn't get the result they wanted on Saturday, I think they played their best game of the tournament. Maybe build a little bit of momentum into this game. So I still like them to get through to that quarter, potentially against the US. And you're looking for some value. It's sort of take your pick. There's a lot of different Swedes you could go to for a goal. Adrian Kempe is a top line guy, top power play guy. And he's priced accordingly. But I think the number for Lucas Raymond is really interesting here.

6:08You can find him close to two to one for your money on a goal. A guy that's going to be playing top six minutes. He's on the first power play for Sweden. And for my eyes, he's probably been the best Swedish player in this tournament. At least the best Swedish forward. You know, maybe outside of Rasmus Dalyne on the back end. So I like the value on Raymond. And I think Latvia plus three and a half just to just to not get blown out in this game against Sweden. Three of the hook. Oh, he's got to get the hook. It's important. I like it. Jake on Germany. Nice one. Ten tomorrow against Savakia in the quarter finals. Want to get to some NHL here. Jake, so quickly on the women's gold medal game or medal games here coming up to them on Thursday. What do you like in there? Yeah. Like you said, I there's a couple quarter final. I said on the men's side, I do like Germany on the initial look. I basically pick them against Slovakia. The Slovak has been a great story in this tournament. And Germany has been underwhelming for me a team. I really like coming in, but I think they they found something the last couple games. I liked what I saw this morning against France. So I like the Germans there. And in the women's medal games, Kelly on Thursday.

7:08I mean, I'm going to miss playing these because we've only got two games left. But women's hockey unders have been just a treat throughout the course of the last week and a half. A lot of low scoring games. A lot of these teams outside of Canada and the US have really struggled to score. Even Canada really has struggled to score. It's really been the US has been the only consistent team in this tournament. So I expect the US to win the game quite comfortably as the odds suggest. But I think if Canada has any chance, it's got to it's got to stay low scoring. And generally the games between these two teams have been lower scoring when we get into the gold medal game. Under five and a half is going to be my play there. I see it as like a four one US win. Something like that in that range. And maybe Canada can muck it up long enough to keep the game close into the third period. And I like the under four and a half you get plus money on it in Switzerland and Sweden. Again, two teams that really struggled to score. And Switzerland could be a sneaky underdog in this game to actually win the bronze medal. But I'm going to play the under four and a half. I see this game as two one for one of these teams. Jake, how can it stay under five and a half goals when we're going to beat you ten to nothing?

8:10How can it possibly stay under five and a half goals? Yeah, in that case, then yeah, I think my under five and a half might be cooked. And honestly, Matt, you're right. If this under is going to get cooked, it won't be Canada winning for two or something like that. There's no way that this Canadian women's team can score more than two goals in my opinion on this US team. The US team has only allowed one goal in the entire tournament in six games. And that was in the first game of the tournament. They have a lot of goal in five games. That's how good this team is defensively. Now, Canada's probably the only team that can test them. But we saw them play in the round robin. They did not test them at all guys. I don't even remember a quality chance in that game for Canada. So I struggled to think that Canada can score more than one or two goals. And it should be the US winning that comfortably by two or three. All right, Matt, I've worked out the odds here. So what's going to happen is little friendly side bet with Jay Khan. Whenever we see him in person, right? Yes. If the US wins, he's going to buy each of us a yingling. And if Canada wins, we're going to buy him three moles. Each.

9:10Okay. He probably prefer a coconut. He probably probably like coconut. Coconut. Coconut. Coconut. I'll take any beer as long as it's cold. But I love me a good moulson. So I love it. That's a deal. That's a deal, Kelly. I think I have a feeling I'm going to be the one paying up. But I'd be happy to buy you guys a nice yingling. All right. We got a minute, Jake, before we get out of here, whenever we get back to the NHL side of things, is there a team for the in your opinion, people should keep an eye on? So guys, I look at the Eastern conference here. So there's two kind of top dogs in the east and it's Tampa and it's Carolina. We're not really surprised to see those two teams there. And I think they deserve to be the favorites going into the playoffs in the Eastern conference. But I also think it's a conference you can maybe find a good number on somebody else that they could potentially go on to run. I think the West, the top teams are probably going to end up going through. I just look at, you know, you look at a Montreal Canadian's 11 to 1 to possibly win the Eastern conference. I don't think that's a bad number for a team that's really shown me something that could possibly push some chips in the middle at the deadline.

10:11And a team I've got my sneaky eye on coming out of the break as well. It's actually a team that's not even in a playoff spot right now in the Washington capitals 25 to 1 right there to win the Eastern conference. Could be worth a sprinkle if they get in. I think they could end up being that dangerous team. It's been disappointing so far, but I select this capitals roster. There's certainly a path for them to get into the playoffs. And if they do, I think there's some value in that number. He is Jake Han. You got him on the point. The fantasy hockey show also the NHL fantasy on ice podcast as well. That's Jake, Jake Han for over on the Twitter machine. Thanks for the time, buddy. And good luck. Awesome, boys. Good luck this weekend. We'll talk soon when we come back. We got an announcement here about some people who are going to punch face. And it came out of nowhere, Kelly. But then we'll let you know who it is. You're here because you want an edge. That's what separates listeners from winners. But let's be real mindset alone doesn't get bets home pros win because they've got the tools. The data and the discipline. And now so can you.

11:12Visa programs you access to the same real time insights the sharps use. No secrets, no fluff, just actionable info that moves markets. Tap the link and see why serious bettors are turning knowledge into profit with Visa and Pro. Yeah. The numbers game on the face and the sports betting network. The numbers game here in the sports betting network not brown in Mike. Oh, got a guy. What's it? I didn't know I had to do it. Kelly Bidlin. Happy party. So here's because I had an M and my I was going to say happy Mardi Gras whenever we came in. It is bat Tuesday, which you learned yesterday. That's what Mardi Gras means. Well, it is. I thought about that way too much yesterday. I'm like, how did I not know this? That's exactly what it means. And if anybody out there, by the way, I don't even think about it. Now that was what troubled me more yesterday was I was I didn't know this. How have I not really wondered about it before? Yeah. I really can't remember last time ahead.

12:13The if you've ever and here's another thing if you've ever wondered what it would be like to watch the world soccer championship sitting in a pool that's heated to 80 degrees. Well, it's plastered along the side of a gigantic building outside of Las Vegas. You can do that. If you win the circus giveaway that we're giving it. We're doing your world soccer championship experience. Circle resort and casino. You're going to get two nights at circa a cabana up there at stadium swim like we just had $500 while you're up there, Kelly. This is I've gone through there yet $500 there. And then 250 while you're down here roaming around the casino. That's like 750 and around of celebratory cocktails at the legacy. And you're in, by the way, how do you get here? VLMO. VLMO. That's how you get here. So you can get all of that. If you had to circle us Vegas.com and enter the world soccer championship challenge over there. So we'll see what's going on with that. I didn't imagine that would be that would be a great way to watch what I didn't know that we couldn't say World Cup. I didn't know we couldn't say that. I had no idea we couldn't say it. Yeah. I learned that as well. Yeah. To be honest, the first week that we did this, I thought it was maybe champions league final

13:14and we were talking about the big one. We can say World Cup. We can say World Cup. We're not promoting anything. So we can now move into that. I was like, I just didn't know we couldn't say, couldn't say World Cup. It was news to me as well. Maybe Matt Cox knew you couldn't say World Cup. I don't know. We'll find out right now. Yeah. Three part of three men. We at Maddie underscore Cox over there on the Twitter machine. He is, in fact, Matt Cox. How you doing, buddy? I'm good. I'm just I'm bewildered as to as the limitations with the tournament that is not to be named. Exactly. But yeah. No, that's awesome. We got circus the best. I'll add a secondary endorsement to that plug. So it was interesting. When we read it the first time, I was like, oh, can't say World Cup. I knew the whole Super Bowl part of the stuff, but I didn't know World Cup. I went for it. I didn't know World Cup was so protective. Yeah. You only come around every four years. You should be. You should want to scream in World Cup. You would think so. I'm the top of a mountain. You would think, but you know, whatever. It's fine. Not my product. Before we get into your picks tonight, Mattie, did you learn anything last night from Iowa State in Houston? Uh, no.

14:14I both teams are awesome. Iowa State, especially at home, what they can lean into that electrical charge crowd. I mean, that's just a. Yeah. I've always said, I don't know if I like Iowa State ceiling as much. I don't like to park it on the the priors of previous seasons because every team is so different now. But just they. They're at their best because they can play so hard in their energy and their defensive. I, offensively, I do have some slight concerns in terms of just like putting them in the. What I would say, you know, Michigan, Arizona. Uh, and frankly, Florida tier at this point. So I, I think Houston's still a cut above Iowa State. I'd probably picked them doing a best of seven. Um, but no, both teams are terrific and I was not mean awesome basketball. Uh, Matt, you got a bunch going tonight. Uh, I love that I got to start here because I'm pretty sure you were picking on Air Force last week too. We're going back to it this week. Lane, a big number with New Mexico. Big number air forces. They've actually been taken money the last few games.

15:15I don't really get why they got like one of their key guards back. But situations pretty simple. It's an interim coach. Uh, Joe Scott is suspended. They've actually started to kind of change up their style. So they used to play a bunch of, you know, board the quintessential Princeton offense. Um, and now they've like trying to just sort of play normal, you know, pick and roll spread. Should have asked Paul, which, um, with less or talent, I just think that's a recipe for disaster. That's kind of what it has been the last few games. Um, so yeah, I don't usually do this where I kind of fade a team for five, six and a row or auto. But on a team, but this is, um, you know, an example where I'm trying to kind of stick to my guns here. But I think the market still still could not quite caught up to the, uh, the downward trajectory of, uh, of our fine servicemen here. Twenty. Just got to keep it within twenty eight guys. Yeah. You know, can you imagine the, the pet talk before the, you know, pet talk for the game. Like we're definitely going to lose. But can you keep this within four touchdowns? Is that possible? They've covered eight games this year. Yeah. All right. Let's go. Let's head to Akron and Western Michigan.

16:17Yeah. Another bully bet for me here. I like the zips on the road. Um, talked about this a little bit before, but large road favorites. Uh, in the month of February, uh, had been a pretty good bet the last few seasons. Um, so that made sense with kind of transition to this portal era where I think you have these bad teams start to think about what's next for their, uh, spring and summer. Uh, portal adventures versus the good teams who are I think are just more dialed in. You get this starting sharper diversion where I think the margin between the good and the bad the haves and the have not started to sharpen. So I'm what that's kind of angle. I'm leaning into here. I think Akron, who scored at Will against West Michigan in the first matchup does so again. defense tightens up and what should be basically a negligible home court value here. So yeah, I like the zips to lay it. Matt, I'm going to circle back to something you just said. Is that really a thing that you think is is going on here recently in college basketball and you kind of expect to go forward? Some of these teams kind of checking out a little early on the season. Yeah, I mean, we're just, you know, tracking Trillia Donovan's portal rumors list.

17:18I you already see, I think more and more tampering and kind of back channel discussions, teams, players trying to get ahead of the curve in terms of where they're going to be next year, right? Like I think you see earlier coaching firings, earlier coaching firings, you don't want to be the coach or that that regime that makes the transition late in the cycle that just trickles down to players and just like the mind, the mentality and the cycle, you know, the, the psyche of a lot of these guys where they have eligibility to transfer. They're not happy where they are. They know they can probably go somewhere else, you know, if you're under 500 in the Mac right now, or you're turning toward not making the conference tournament or just basically and you feel like, you know, you're not going anywhere. I just think that bleeds end a lot of these kids heads. So I think that's kind of what I, you start to see. I think some of these favorites, which used to be kind of bad bets late in the season, actually be decent bets because of that kind of phenomenon that's starting to creep into the game. Yeah, that's, that's interesting. Again, that's a pure, that's hypothesis speculation. I'm still in the testing phase of that. But yeah, I mean, it, it checks out, right? I think it's something to, uh, just, uh, to track here in these couple of years.

18:19All right, we got to stay in in the Mac ball state and Ohio catching points in this one for you. I like ball state. It's funny. This is sort of going against the other way. Ball state I was worried might be tearing on the version of wave in the white flag. Their coach is on the hot state right now of like Lewis. But they've got some key guys back. They played much more competitively lately. No, one name is Kate and fish guy started Iowa state. It's a team that all year has just been, you know, frankly disastrous, but it's because they haven't been healthy. They've had like three or four guys playing through injuries. I think Lewis did the smart thing kind of saved his horses until the stretch run. And you just kind of see what they've done recently. It's been much more competitive. So I think in this game, they match it pretty well at the Ohio. I think it's close. I think they keep this competitive. Matt, I know this isn't one of your official plays, but we do have a big showdown Michigan and Purdue about a two and a half point spread there. And that one Michigan on the road. Any thoughts, any leans, anything that you hated about the game? I leaned to Michigan. The last time Purdue was a home dog in conference play was 2021 against Michigan.

19:20And they got, they got throttled that game, but just kind of speaks to how good Matt painters been at Purdue and how rare the situation this is. My numbers like Purdue, but again, the schematics, the matchup with how athletic and dominant Michigan is at the rim, Purdue's kind of struggled with that. If anything, I think I like the over the most. I think both offense here and have success here. I'm both hyper efficient with decent avenues to score a back and forth. Matt, we're going to roll back. I know you got one more bet that you're looking at tonight. But I'm all about that. Maxion. So I got a question for you here. Miami Ohio. Are we like, we're really talking about an undefeated season here. They got the prop listed. It's like plus 225. I've seen out there. What do you, what do you think happens here? Well, I don't, I got to run the Sims to see that's a decent price. But I think tonight's a tough matchup, man. You may have almost got him on the first meeting. Frank Martin's team is, you know, he brought this team from the eight 10. They look like a more athletic Mac team, like usually the eight 10's just a cut above the Mac. UMass has eight 10 caliber town. A couple of guys had actually transferred down. They're very athletic, right?

20:20And I think that's sort of could be a kryptonite to Miami. But defensively, they're very health or skill to the very discomboblin. Miami can shred him on the other end as well. So again, other one where I'm kind of leaning toward the over here. But this is the one feels like the obvious landmine spot for Miami coming down the straps. I think they have played a couple better teams. But this is just sort of a tough tricky matchup. UMass is just a thorn on the side. Because you don't know what you're going to get. I don't think any Mac teams like playing them, frankly. All right, about a minute left. We got southeast Missouri state and you team Martin. And you were going to put the dog there on the money line. Yes, all right. I'm not exactly playing the hits here for your superversus. But winners are winners, but it doesn't matter. That's right. Winners are winners. I like the Red Hawks tonight against the battle of the Hawks. Seamote just playing a lot better lately. They've gotten healthier than kind of figured out the rotation. And this is actually a critical game. They win this. They're tied with Martin for first place in the OVC. One of those leagues that stacks the deck heavily for their favorites, much likes the WCC. So every gamer coming down the stretch is huge. I like the road team to get it done. He is Matt Cox.

21:21Part of three man weave over there at Maddie underscore Cox on the Twitter machine. Appreciate the time, buddy. And I good luck. Thank you, boys. Appreciate you. So coming through, we said we might get some news here. Kelly as we were as we were on air with some of these things going through. It is the jets are probably are likely to franchise tag breeze hall. So they're going to keep him around. Listen, they kind of had to do it, right? I mean, they have no, they got nobody. It's him and Garrett Wilson. And that's I mean, they have he's one of two players. Anybody even knows. You didn't really have a choice. I don't think I guess before you just completely lose the fan base. I mean, it's one of those where you're like, yeah, now you're probably right. Like they have the money. They have the money. I guess to spend on something like that. Because you're not going to fully be able to rebuild this. No, absolutely not. So we'll see if he sticks around like I said, even more now, think that the dolphins are the fourth place team in that. Numbers game on the face and these sports betting network.

22:27Numbers game here on these Matt Kelly and waste no time. Head straight to our next guest. Fresh off the slopes overseas of Italy, Austria. Take it in the skeleton and monobob feel very jealous. Never seen this. I've never seen a live monobob in my whole life. He is Drew Dinsick at Whale underscore caper over on Twitter machine. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, man. And honestly, the sliding center was the surprise. Like we can't we were in the in Cortina. So we got tickets for and I was like, I thought it was going to be kind of silly, but it actually was thrilling. Like they give you so fan experience. A lot of opportunities to see them like kind of up on the wall. Like coming around the big sweeping turns at the bottom. It was actually quite cool. So a hat tip to them for getting that constructed and making the fan experience cool. Curling awesome downhill skiing was obviously the crown jewel of the Olympics as far as the viewing experience goes.

23:28And we saw some good stuff. We saw the breezy Johnson take down gold for America in the downhill. And then she opened the door for a second gold in that winning the women's combined first leg before Michaela Schiffer and just completely bottled the second leg. But yeah, it's been a tough Olympics for America. I was pretty confident that we were going to get our metal total at 12 and a half. That looks very, very unlikely at this point. To my count, we have left five likely golds on the field of play so far. We're probably going to land right around 10. Chances for most goals pretty much gone. Like if we had gotten the five we should have at this point. We were sitting at 11. I would feel pretty good that we were going to be able to sneak our way into a win with 15 or so. But right now I think we've got about four more left in us in terms of likely wins. So that'll be it. Those will be else. But my other two big positions, Germany under, as you can see on the metal count, they're not even in the top five right now.

24:29I honestly, I think they are at the top. I think they have five. But them getting to 13 golds is extremely unlikely at this point, even though they're going to win a lot of Bob sled gold. And then I have Swiss over five and a half that's going to make a break by metal bets because they're sitting at five. And we need a sixth. Not sure where we're going to get it. But we hold our breath. Drew, I know we want to get to some NBA with you as well here. So Olympics, anything else, rest of the way, anything you're looking at today, any other kind of big futures that you're eyeing here for the rest of the way. It's kind of, it's everything is really, really well priced right now, I would say. So it's going to be mostly just kind of holding breath and hoping that things break in favor of us. If you want some skin on some high likelihood stuff, the German Bob sled team is going to probably for the men. They're probably going to win about three gold medals in the next couple of days. They're very, very, very solid. In the women's downhill, in the men's salon, the Kayla shipwrens of mine, a pretty heavy

25:33minus favorite. I kind of almost want to take her on there. She's skiing really poorly so far. In these games, her giant salon was a huge disappointment yesterday or two days ago. And then as mentioned in the, in the combined her skiing was just way too tentative to be considered this heavy of a favorite. So, you know, don't love going against her. But it's pretty clear that the pressure is kind of built up on some of our biggest names. And they're not responding well to it. Drew, let's head over to the NBA. And when, as we kind of head down the stretch here, we start talking about the teams we actually think are good enough to get it done. Who's going to make a surge? Who's going to be that team that kind of comes out of nowhere? Who is the pretender out there? And it seems like to me everybody is landing on the pistons. Like nobody, you hear everybody talking with a Celtics, the Knicks, the Cal, like every, every other team gets talked about in the Eastern Conference, except for the pistons who are five and a half games clear of the next closest team. What is your opinion of this of the squad?

26:34I think the calves can run them down in the central. If you want, if you want a long shot, that's kind of, I mean, I honestly didn't know that that was such sincere consensus makes me a little nervous. I've been consuming a lot of US, you know, major sport media and content lately. So that kind of surprised me. Although I will say pistons, trade deadline was a complete failure. They were clear in obvious ways that they could have addressed some of the limitations of this team, get a second offensive, reliable piece alongside King Cunningham. They elected not to do that. I think that was probably a pretty obvious mistake considering how weak the Eastern Conference is. And now I think they're kind of team that looks ripe for a bit of a belly flop. Now there's two things also going on with the pistons. One, obviously, they have a couple of suspensions that they're going to have to get through with Durant and Stewart, Stewart most notably in terms of length of suspension coming out of the

27:35All Star Break. Normally, I would just kind of shrug and be like, but these are short suspensions. But that stretch coming out of the All Star Break is brutal. Considering that they have an East Coast Eastern Conference schedule overall, it's kind of wild that they're going to have to go through this gauntlet here in the next two weeks. So yeah, we could blink and there could be kind of a two-game gap between them and the Cavaliers. Right now, I rate the Cavaliers, the better team, just neutrally. And the Cavaliers have an extremely easy schedule on the way. And like, I'm phenomenally soft. I think anyone that watched the NBA in January and February probably noted a lack of intensity and effort at times. The effort's been a bit inconsistent and has kind of determined a lot of game-by-game outcomes if you're betting sides. And then right into the All Star Break, it was pretty clear that the tank is on for a number of these teams. And so when I'm projecting wins going into the home stretch here, I'm not just adding up

28:4185% when the Cavaliers play the jazz. It's more like 100%. There's pretty clearly a kind of an outcome where jazz could cover some games. Some of these other tanking teams could cover some games, but they're certainly not going to win. The edict has been kind of decided from the top, I think, with a lot of these teams. And in general, you have to adjust your math accordingly when you're projecting win totals. I have the thunder as your most likely wins on the way in. I'm projecting them to win about 21 more games between now and the end of the season and year one seed in the West. The market has them as like a humongous favorite to win the most games on the way in. And I think that's a little bit of a, a, a tackable number. The thunder obviously are dealing with the number of injuries. The thunder probably not going to deal with a threat for the one seed from the Spurs, but maybe they will. Their schedule is extremely difficult

29:43on the way. And then there's definitely a world where they continue to use the rest of February and the beginning portion of March to get healthy before trying to put together solid, you know, kind of playoff dress rehearsal performances and the last couple weeks of March and into April. So I think there's definitely a world where the thunder do still get the one seed, but it's a much smaller margin than the market realizes. And then the next group of teams led by the Cavaliers, the Celtics, the Rockets, it's, you know, right on the heels of the thunder. I'm projecting all right about 20 wins on the way in. The two that stand out as mentioned, the Cavaliers, just because of the way that I'm rating them relative to how we've seen them this season. Their offense is so much stronger with hardened and vault. And then the Rockets actually have a surprisingly soft schedule on the way in and are generally healthy enough, I think, to make a decent case to move up the standings and potentially close with about 20 wins on the way in. So yeah, I think the key, the name of the game, handicapping sort of expectations from here to the

30:48end of the season is really just evaluating straight the schedule, adjusting for tanking teams, just fully waving the white flag in terms of winning games. And then, you know, seeing who's made the right moves at the deadline and who is going to be healthy and giving you full effort. And the teams that rise for me are the Cavs in the Rockets. As far as like long-term futures, I still think there's a black swan event where Tatum comes back and the Celtics are all the sudden minus 200 to in the east. I've got a lot of Celtics to in the east. I think the chances that we're seeing Celtics thunder in the finals is pretty high. And I have a lot of thunder to win the title. So in a perfect world, the Celtics get Tatum back with a month to go, get him up to full speed where he's carrying a load of 25, 28 minutes a game and, you know, can win a relatively weak eastern conference. Actually, in a perfect world, the Cavaliers just run rough shot through the rest of the regular season. When every game, people believe in hard end in the playoffs and then we get great

31:52prices to bet against them. But yeah, Celtics coming through the east feels possible to me. Undercoming through the west feels very likely to mean not really worried about any of the other contenders in the west as far as best of seven series besides maybe the nuggets, but they don't look strong enough to me to really give the thunder more than a seven game series. And ultimately, I think thunder over Celtics will be our finals. Okay. I like it. You're real quick. Just a note, pistons next 14, but 16 days you've got the nicks. You got the spurs twice. You got the calves twice. So just going to what Drew said real quick. You got about 20 seconds MVP. How do you see this thing playing out? I think it'll end up going to SGA, but it's certainly a lot less certain than I would have said the same thing in beginning of December. I don't have a good read on whether his injury that forced him to miss the all-star festivities was more of a precautionary or something to be concerned about. And there certainly has been no whispers or cloak and dagger stuff about,

32:52you know, real serious concerns. He is Drew Dinsick deep dive podcast NBC Sports Edge at whale underscore capper over on the short of machine Drew. Appreciate it, buddy. Nate, best look, guys. Numbers game on Fisense. These sports betting network. And number came here on Bs and Bs Sports betting network. Maybe we will have time in the final segment. We got to go country club. And Mark Cuban put out a rant on why the NBA should embrace tanking. Okay. And a big long little diatribe. But basically the gist of it in case we can't get to the full thing by the time we get out of here, Kelly, is that the NBA should worry more about the fan experience than tanking. It should worry more about the pricing fans out of games than tanking. Basically trying to say that it kids carrying more about this than it is about

33:56the experience of the fans. And he basically points out that fans aren't stupid. They understand that like you're not going to win every single night. And that, you know, also sometimes these things are for the betterment of the franchise, which then will make their experience better because it's better to have a winning team and all of this and saying they're focusing on the wrong thing here. And the thing should be why don't we try to make the game more accessible to fans and make fans have a better experience. So we'll see. But how do you do? I know it's not you saying these things, but how do you do that if you're benching guys that people are coming to see? Well, I'm sure Mark Cuban would have a retort to that. But yeah, I thought it was a great, great episode of a hoop collective podcast. You know, I've brought up a couple of times already. But I, you know, win horse kind of breaking this down of the, it's just such an imperfect system. And it's, it's, it's nearly impossible to fix because of that. The way that the league is constructed is in a socialist type setting, right? Of like we're going to try to keep everybody good and involved. And that's just not the way that a franchise is going to operate. A franchise is

34:59always going to think for what's best for itself. First, hence, tanking, right? Which that is not going to lead to what's good for the league. It's just, it's a mess. And I've not heard the best answer. I don't know what the best answer is to fix this. Maybe Paul Karnos. He's going to join us here from true media sports, expected value podcast at Paul Karnos. How do we fix tanking, Paul? I have no idea, but it did trigger a thought for me. So I feel like in the NFL, fans of bad teams pretty openly will, you know, root against them to get a higher draft. Is, and I'm not much of an NBA follower. So you guys tell me, is that as much of a thing in the NBA? Or not. Well, the problem is this because you're not guaranteed the pick, which is one of the things that Kelly and I did throw out is like just doing away with the lottery part of it. And then just, you know, understand that if you're the worst team, you get the top pick. And then maybe the caveat is that you can't be in the top three, two years in a row or something, whatever, something like that. So you can't just have repeated tanks over and over again. But

36:00in just every draft class has not created equal, right? Like not every, you know, Zachary Riesechet is not Darren Peterson, right? Or Victor Wombon Yama. Like that's part of the problem. And yeah, Paul, the other problem is there are bad characters in this, right? Like the Washington Wizards have lost way too many years for way too long that it's just unacceptable. And I think that's where fans get to a point where it's like, okay, we're okay if you tank once or twice, but you can't be doing this every single year, which is what it's kind of turning. I guess there's something to, you know, there's just more games in the NBA. And a player makes a bigger difference way more than any other sport, right? There's just fewer on the field. You know, I mean, we see it over here. The grounds beat the Steelers in week 16 or whatever for no reason at all, because, you know, there's just so many players and the exact ones are smaller. Exactly. Like, I mean, you, you, you tank and like, everyone's like, oh, this team is tanking. And then you like, and then you get a lucodonchitz or something, you know, and like, and then it just, or you get a good, yeah, as much better, too. Yeah. And so you get all of that. And

37:01then it's like, oh, well, never mind. That's why you tanked. I get it now. Makes perfect. Yeah, those top, those top two, three picks in the NBA have a much higher hit percentage than the number one, two, three picks, the NFL, even a quarterbacks. Yes, absolutely. Paul, we actually got, we had, we had a request here on the Twitter machine making sure you were going to be on today to talk champions, leagues that can kind of reset the table here. Where, where do we sit? We bet. We're starting the business end. So we're in the knockout stage now. It's last season they added this extra round. They call it the playoff round. It's essentially the round of 32, but there's only 16 teams in it. So there's eight matchups. So it's a play in into the round of 16, which over the past few decades has traditionally been the start of the knockout round. So this is the first leg this week of two. And the second leg is, I think it's next week. And then the aggregate winner from each of those series will go on to the round of 16. And then we're in knockout stages, Paul. Or in the knockout stage, yeah. They call it the playoff round, but this is the knockout stage. It's just kind of a half round earlier than it used to be. Okay, gotcha. Yes. Added teams changing up a way that we are doing things. I know you've got, we've got games today,

38:06tomorrow. Let's start with the one you were looking at today. All right. So I have been Fika double chance against Real Madrid today. That has been Fika win or draw. Been Fika. This used play three weeks ago. Been Fika one four to two. And this was not a, you know, kind of where they soccer. I'm going to get lucky to get pull out the win. They outplayed Real Madrid. They beat him in transition. They beat him on set pieces. Real Madrid's moved up to first place in La Liga, but really haven't been that good under new manager, Alvaro Arbolo lately. So Been Fika is going to defend well. They have Jose Moreno, who used to manage a Real Madrid is known for kind of parking the bus. And I don't think Been Fika is quite going to do that defensively, but that they'd well play stout defense. And I'm not convinced Real Madrid can break them down. They're missing a couple of hackers to belling him Rodriguez out for injury and suspension. So I like Been Fika on the double chance. I got this at minus one 15. And it has moved well in my favor. I guess you'd say today it's close to a minus one 30 minus one 50 range.

39:10Now. So I wouldn't play this past minus one 30 or so. So this may be a little bit of an outdated pick. But I like Been Fika's chances today against Real Madrid. All righty. Uh, tomorrow, you get to I can't wait for you. I can't wait for you. I can't. No, no, no, no, no, you're you are. Yeah, you are. I didn't read it. I'll try it. I texted Paul last night. We've been, we've been I have been talking to Paul Carr about soccer for a long time now. It's been five, six years, something like that. It is rare for me to see a team come through the text message that I have not seen before. Got it last night because Newcastle will be going up against. Let's do it. FK Karabakh. I'm going to go Karabakh. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. It's just like a lot of done, buddy. Well done. Nailed it. There we go. So that is tomorrow saying 1245. This is tomorrow. And I'm not saying I made the pictures to make Kelly pronounce their name, but I'm not I'm not saying that either. So yeah, Karabakh and Newcastle, I have both teams to score minus one 15 year. So Karabakh is an Azerbaijan on the Caspian sea.

40:11It's like a six hour flight from England. And it's really funny to see English just media fans kind of freak out about five and six hour flights when they have to go to Eastern Europe. Because, you know, honestly, here, it's like, you're going to LA. It's not enough to do this once a month or something. But there's like, oh, my goodness. And yeah, so that's a big that's something. But Karabakh scored in all their home games this season. They scored twice in all five actually. In the Champions League and racked up the numbers, the underlying numbers to support that. Not super fluke. They've also given up a goal in nine of their 10 Champions League games, including qualifying. So, you know, Newcastle's been the best team in the Premier League on set pieces this season. Karabakh hasn't defended those well. So look for Newcastle and maybe get at least a goal that way. Among other possibilities. And Newcastle also doesn't have Bruno in the midfield. These injured, he's out to April. So that should give Karabakh some space, whether it's on the counter or just building up to try to get a goal. So this is was partially made to make Kelly say the team name partially because this is one of the more fun bets to root for. But I generally like this one,

41:12minus one, 15 on both teams. Paul Kargiven is a lesson here on all this. Azerbaijan, former Soviet Republic. It's bound by the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus mountains there. Kelly Bidlin. And it is it's capital of Baku. It is famed for its medieval walled inner city. The inner city is walled off and there dates back to the 15th century. Well, well, look at that. Good job, Bapu. I want to spin this forward. The Paul, is there more fun we can have with this Karabakh team because if we're playing both teams to score, who's scoring for Karabakh? That's what I want. That, that, you know, you have to call in or ask about Johnny expert for that. Why not start out yet anyway? But that would be my backup excuse, but we're really, it's yeah, I can't stand dialed in on who's going to get the goals against Newcastle. Olympiacos in Liever Kusin. I get it, right? We just leave it. I said Liever Kusin. You said Liever, Liever, Liever, Liever, whatever. It's all the same. It's the American pronunciation, right? Yeah, whatever, all of that.

42:13We are looking, oh, you have, you have the dog in this one. I do. I mean, it's a better team for sure. This is a little funny also because they played last month in Greece, which is where this game is. And Olympiacos won that one 2-0. So maybe that's influencing this number here. But in that game, Liever Kusin outshot Olympiacos 17-6. Two and a half expected goals to 1.0 had 72% possession. A little bit of that is because Olympiacos scored in the first minute and then got a breakaway goal right for half time. So, Liever Kusin was chasing the whole second half, but they dominated this game. They've been playing pretty well in Bundesliga. They've won 506 and losing that match to Olympiacos. They've been one of the better teams and the Bundesliga defensively. So I would take Liever Kusin to win. I think this is a real nice price. I have it up plus 185. I've seen those number, that number is still out there this morning. So yeah, give me the better team on a really good price even on the road because they dominated the first matchup. I don't see why they won't dominate this one as well. He is Paul Carr. You can find him true sports media expected value

43:13podcasts and at Paul Carr over there on the tournament. You can Paul appreciate the time and good luck, man. You bet. Carabag. Let's go. There we go. Carabag. I'm finding a goal score. But yeah, I'm in. I love it, buddy. I'm going to find their best goal score and I'm going to bet him. Let the, let the, let the rumors begin. Both teams to score. Tyree kill to the Ravens getting floated. Okay. Now that that might be a reason to get Lamar Jackson to sign an extension there in Baltimore. All right. To get him a Tyree kill. But you don't know what Tyree kill you're getting. He's 32 coming off a horrible leg injury. Right. I don't know. Are you getting him on a cheap deal? It's hard to argue that right? If you do. If it's a cheap deal, then maybe so. We're going to head to Riviera when we come back. Let's go country club.