Bracket busters?

Wednesday, March 19, 2003 | 9:36 a.m.

Television schedule

Games scheduled to be shown on Ch. 8:

Thursday

Gonzaga vs. Cincinnati, 9:40 a.m.

BYU vs. Connecticut, 11:40 a.m.

Arizona State vs. Memphis, 4:10 p.m.

Colorado State vs. Duke, 6:45 p.m.

Friday

IUPUI vs. Kentucky, 9:30 a.m.

Utah vs. Oregon, 11:50 a.m.

Colorado vs. Michigan State, 4:10 p.m.

Alabama vs. Indiana, 6:45 p.m.

Judging by the way its players were booed when they ran onto the court at last week's conference tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center, Brigham Young is the Mountain West team that fans love to hate.

But this week, Las Vegas sports books and NCAA office pool participants have a better reason to cheer against the Cougars.

They could cost them money.

Should BYU upset Connecticut in the first round of the NCAA tournament and then knock off either Stanford or San Diego in the second round, it would move on to the Sweet 16, where it was scheduled to play the following Friday and Sunday.

But the Mormon church, which owns the school, recognizes Sunday as a day of rest. It does not allow BYU to compete on that day.

Thus the NCAA has formulated an unprecedented plan in which the Cougars would switch brackets in mid-tournament, moving from the Midwest to the South.

The NCAA sees this as an adequate compromise. But Nevada sports books that offered odds on BYU to win the Midwest region aren't as agreeable.

They would be forced to refund bets made on the Cougars to win the Midwest, and also on the team that would switch brackets with them.

"It doesn't really affect us, because we put them in 'the field' to win the NCAA tournament (and not a region)," said Jay Kornegay, race and sports book director at the Imperial Palace.

"The only thing that it does affect is every office pool in America, that's all."

Kornegay was being facetious when he said "that's all," because money bet on the tournament legally in Nevada is a drop in the bucket compared to what is wagered illegally in office pools across America. The FBI estimates that more than $2.5 billion is gambled on the NCAA tournament every year, with only $80 million bet legally through Nevada sports books.

That means roughly $2.4 billion will change hands at the water cooler as a result of buzzer-beating baskets and missed free throws.

Green Valley Ranch offers one of the few legal wagers based on the office pool method, and is cautioning bettors, both in writing and verbally at the betting windows, about the possibility of BYU switching brackets.

"If they get knocked early, you laugh about it," said Green Valley Ranch's Kelly Downey. "But if they don't, you start crying and try to figure it out.

"It opens a big can of worms that, honestly, I don't have a deadpan answer for."

Perhaps USA Today does. Its tip to bracketeers who believe BYU will make it to the Sweet 16 is to put the Cougars in place of Wisconsin, Weber State, Dayton or Tulsa in the South, and take the team from those four you have advancing and put it in BYU's place.

In other words, if you believe in the Cougars, there's still time to adjust. If you don't, don't worry about it.

This is BYU's 20th time in the tournament, but the first time it has been slotted in a bracket that would play on Sunday. Interestingly, NCAA basketball selection committee chairman Jim Livengood is a 1968 BYU graduate.

"It was just a human error," Livengood told the Associated Press. "There were 32 eyes looking at it. It just wasn't caught."

If the selection committee had reacted as quickly as Nevada's sports books, perhaps the BYU situation could have been rectified. Most local betting parlors issued disclaimers upon learning of the situation, or simply took bets to win the individual regionals off the board.

But regional futures bets don't generate a lot of action at most books.

"Most of the (futures) bets are on who is going to win the tournament, not who is going to win the regional," said John Avello, race and sports book director at Bally's.

Avello said not being able accept bets on who would win the NCAA tournament until UNLV and/or Nevada-Reno was eliminated, as was the case in the past, was a much bigger issue than this one. That concession to the NCAA was rescinded by the Nevada Gaming Commission in 2001, amid proposed legislation to eliminate legalized betting on college sports.

Avello and others said that if BYU advances to the Sweet 16, Bally's would offer refunds on the Cougars and the team with which they switch brackets.

"If BYU loses, there won't be a situation," said Pete Korner, operations manager at Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which sets betting lines for many major Nevada sports books and offshore betting operations. "If not, you have to refund whatever needs to be refunded. It's not that difficult."

"This isn't a big thing."

Still, others in the industry expect many bettors will demand refunds, regardless of any disclaimers made on BYU.

"There are a lot of $20 bettors ... and there are obviously going to be some challenges, no matter what the sports books put up as a disclaimer," said one sports book boss.

Although a lot of dominoes have to fall into place before the bracket busting would begin, stranger things have happened. Despite its No. 12 seed, BYU is just a 4-point underdog to Connecticut, a No. 5 seed. And Avello said should the Cougars win that one, they would be no more than a 1- or 2-point underdog to fourth-seeded Stanford, and probably be favored against San Diego -- a No. 13 seed.

As BYU star Travis Hansen said, "I have no idea what the committee did or what they were thinking." But the oversight has made the Cougars the talk of the tournament, at least before it begins.

On Monday night, you couldn't turn on ESPN without seeing highlights of Hansen or fellow BYU standouts Mark Bigelow and Rafael Araujo that served as backdrop to the story.

"This is a big national story," BYU athletic director Val Hale told the Salt Lake City Tribune, adding that he received more than 200 telephone calls on Sunday night alone from reporters who noticed the potential problem.

"It's not our fault. It's the committee's fault. They knew the rules. They just messed up."