Three Million and FIBA

At some point in late August, probably on the 31st, this blog crossed the 3 million hits landmark which isn't something I would have though possible when I started sharing my thoughts back in 2008. Thank you to everyone who has visited the site in those 15+ years.

After almost two weeks away relaxing in Kent, Dorset, Devon, Sussex and Surrey visiting family and friends, it was back to work yesterday and catching up on various personal spreadsheets. To say that August wasn't a good month would be putting it mildly, with its six figure loss putting it in 145th place out of 152, although in percentage terms it was a much better 138rd. With September traditionally the worst month for me, and the last four all negative, Green Day's song comes to mind but then I'd miss out on some good sport, the Rugby World Cup being one event I'm planning to enjoy.

The NFL is back, and the season started with a winner for Sacred Manuscript subscribers on Thursday Night.

A couple of subscribers commented that one of the Draw systems has started the 2023/24 season rather badly. It actually started the season rather well, with two of the first three selections winners, but as happens when backing the Draw, losing runs can be long and are never pleasant. The current run now sits at 14 beating the previous record dry run of 13 from back in February 2018, a sequence was ended by four consecutive Draws and 11 Draws in the next 16 matches. 

Here's hoping for something similar this weekend. We got a little unlucky with the Draw in the 13th game being busted by a 90+8' goal, but these things happen. The good news is that so far this season, Pinnacle are working to a 102.7% overround so actual results should be better (or less worse) than those I record.

For the EPL, it's business as usual with two winners from five so far this season and an even better average overround of 102.5%.

In the Basketball World Cup, backing the Draw is not recommended, but Laying the USA would have been a profitable strategy. They were around 1.1 versus Lithuania in a Group J match and lost by six points on Sunday, and at about 1.17 they lost by two points in the semi-final to Germany.

The USA start as big favourites against Canada in the meaningless Third Place game on Sunday, a game that hasn't been kind to favourites traditionally with the underdogs winning in both 2010 (Lithuania v Serbia) and 2014 (France v Lithuania). In 2019, France and Australia were joint favourites.   

Germany are fovourites to beat Serbia in the Final, a meaningful game that does tend to go to form.