UGA vs. the odds, or an excuse to post an "Empire Strikes Back" picture

Let’s start this with the usual disclaimer that we don’t condone gambling. So that’s out of the way. But for the purposes of analyzing perception against performance it’s really, really useful.

For instance, the perception is that the Georgia men’s basketball team is pretty much winning the games it should, and not winning the ones it shouldn’t. So I wondered, as I often do, does its performance against the Vegas betting lines bear that out?

It does, sort of.

According to Vegasinsider.com, the Bulldogs are 9-3 when the favorite, and 4-4 when they’re the underdog. (Four games didn’t have a betting line.) Overall, the Bulldogs are 9-10-1 against the spread.

Here are the games Georgia lost as the favorite, all home games:

- Tennessee ..... UGA favored by 5, lost by two.
- Florida ....... UGA favored by 2.5, lost in double overtime by 13.
- Xavier ........ UGA favored by 4.5, lost by eight.

And here are the games it won as the underdog:

- at Saint Louis …. +1 … Won by two.
- at Georgia Tech … +3.5 .. Won by one.
- Kentucky ........ +5.5 .. Won by seven.
- at Ole Miss....... +4 …. Won by 22.

For comparison purposes:

- Vanderbilt (tonight’s opponent) is 12-2 as the favorite, and 2-4 as the underdog.
- Kentucky is 10-7 as the favorite, and 2-0 as the underdog.
- Florida is 11-4 as the favorite, and 5-0 as the underdog.
- Tennessee is 9-7 as the favorite, and 4-3 as the underdog.

As for tonight, Georgia is currently a 2.5-point favorite over Vanderbilt.

Oh, and for your daily football fix:

Last season Georgia was 5-4 as the favorite (losses to Arkansas, Mississippi State, Colorado and Central Florida), and 0-3 as the underdog (losses to South Carolina, Florida and Auburn). The Idaho State game was off the board.