Talking hoops in Vegas: Horrors!

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Two days after it was announced that Bob Knight and Billy Packer would host a Fox Sports TV show at Wynn Las Vegas analyzing the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, USA Today published a story questioning whether that is the right thing to do.

“Vegas venue raises eyebrows for Knight-Packer show,” read the headline.

The only raised eyebrows mentioned in the story were the two belonging to Arnie Wexler, identified as a recovering compulsive gambler who runs a gambling hot line. One would hope it is an anti-gambling hot line, but that’s not what the story said.

Is it just me, or are half of all guys with a gambling problem named Arnie?

This Arnie more or less said Bob Knight and Billy Packer should scale up to where Steve Wynn sits and take a flying leap off the edge of Encore for having the audacity to discuss the tournament in a city where wagering on it is legal to begin with.

OK, this is what he actually said: “The NCAA should have enough clout to stop something like this. It sends the message to (college) kids it’s OK to do this.”

Since when it is wrong for college kids to discuss the NCAA Tournament? That’s all that Bob and Billy supposedly will be doing.

I was going to say you can bet there won’t be any references to point spreads or Neil Reed, but you can’t bet on that. Not even at Leroy’s Race and Sports Book.

There must be some magnetic force at work in sports books and taverns in the Midwest (which is where my old man used to bet on sports) because Arnie and lots of sanctimonious others apparently believe it’s impossible to enter either one without plunking down hard-earned cash on a basketball game featuring athlete-students from bastions of higher learning such as Southern Illinois and Syracuse (provided Boeheim gets in this year).

Maybe it is an issue for guys who have a problem, and you’ve got to feel for them. But I’d say for every guy who has a gambling problem, there are 100 who don’t, because they practice moderation.

Yet, says Arnie of the NCAA, “they’re setting themselves up for a scandal. Who knows how many college students are going to bet on these games. I’m sure some athletes will bet, too. What kind of message are we sending by running a show like this? The whole thing is sick.”

For once, the NCAA doesn’t think so.

“In terms of geographic location, the NCAA doesn’t have a position one way or another,” spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said in the USA Today story about the Bob and Billy Show. “However, our position is clear and unchanged on college sports wagering ... we oppose it in all forms.”

Yeah, so does Bob Knight. He has said so in his book and other places. But if you want to call him a hypocrite for hosting a show about the NCAA Tournament in Las Vegas remember this isn’t about taking Syracuse and laying the points, it’s about what Syracuse has to do to beat Southern Illinois, in his opinion.

What you do with that information is your business. (But I’d take what Packer says with a grain of salt. Anybody who refers to the Mountain West as the “Big Mountain,” which Billy did during UNLV’s Sweet 16 run a couple of years ago, simply cannot be trusted.)

Normally, this is the place where I’d remind people that roughly 99 percent of the $7 billion that is wagered during March Madness is bet illegally, and that if some frat boys managed to talk a disgruntled point guard into tanking a few free throws at the end of the game, our sports book guys would blow the whistle like a traffic cop in Times Square. Their livelihood depends on basketball games being decided fairly and honestly, not by disgruntled point guards and rogue officials who favor ACC teams.

Instead, let me leave you with another argument I’ve used in reference to this issue that warrants repeating here.

If somebody truly is concerned about the temptation of illegal betting on the NCAA Tournament, the teams should no longer be seeded.

Seeding is just a politically correct way of handicapping each and every tournament game. When a No. 1 seed plays a No. 16 seed, it establishes who is supposed to win and by how much. Same with a No. 2 against a No. 15 and right on down the line. (Watch out for those 5 vs. 12 games, however. They can fool you.)

Maybe the seedings don’t set a specific numerical line, but they do provide those who don’t follow college basketball as closely as Bob Knight and Billy Packer a general idea of what’s supposed to happen, at least if the NCAA Tournament committee has done its homework. This information is crucial to filling out your office bracket and spares you the trouble of listening to ESPN’s Jay Bilas and Andy Katz drone on and on.

But just for the heck of it, I think I’m going to listen to what Bob and Billy say and see if I can resist the temptation of running down to the nearest Leroy’s and letting my tax return check ride on the outcome of the Syracuse vs. Southern Illinois game.

And when the game comes on TV, I’ll also try to resist becoming a problem drinker when they start showing all those beer ads.