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Bad beat: Ole Miss loses to Michigan State, but covers the spread on buzzer-beater
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A bad beat has become a slang term made popular by SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt in his weekly gambling feature on sporting events whose gamblers were torn apart one way or another by how a football or basketball game ended.
Well, Friday night’s South Region semifinal matchup in Atlanta was a fine Sweet 16 matchup in which 2-seed Michigan State outlasted feisty 6-seed Ole Miss, 73-70. The outcome looked really close, and the game was close, but the final outcome wasn’t decided on a buzzer-beater. What it was, especially to our betting friends, was a bad beat, or a very bad beat, because the only thing sweet about this Sweet 16 matchup was if you had the Rebels to cover the 3.5-point spread set by ESPN Bet.
During the final seconds, the Spartans had the victory in their grasp with a little cushion. It was 73-67, and unless there was a 6-point play just invented in basketball, the game was basically over.
However, especially for those brave souls who are part of the March Madness gambling world, the game within the game was not over yet.
And sure enough, Ole Miss senior guard Matthew Murrell had the ball in his hands and wasn’t just satisfied with dribbling the clock out without shooting the ball. So, he took a few casual dribbles and let fly a 3-point shot from the top of the key that was a few feet beyond the 3-point arc.
No harm, right? Yes, plenty of harm, at least to certain bettors. Because, naturally, the shot that looked like a brick somehow found its way into the basket at the buzzer. That meant the final was 73-70 instead, and suddenly, the Spartans hadn’t covered that 3.5-point spread that looked golden just a few seconds earlier.
For Michigan State and head coach Tom Izzo, it was euphoria, as the legendary coach was heading back to yet another Elite Eight. For bettors who believed the Spartans could cover that spread on Friday night, it was big-time hope followed by big-time agony.
Such is March Madness, and such are bad beats.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
