Bettors pounded UNR over UNLV

Unless Warren Beatty suddenly joins the selection committee, the UNLV men’s basketball team certainly won’t receive an invitation to the NCAA Tournament or any other postseason event this year.

This means that there is likely only three chances left this season to bet against the Rebels (10-19, 3-13 Mountain West), who have lost nine straight games while going 1-7-1 against the spread and have covered only two of their last 14 games.

UNLV, mired in its worst season in school history, is coming off a pair of embarrassing blowout losses — 81-58 at Air Force on Wednesday and 94-58 to rival UNR on Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Wolf Pack closed as 8½-point favorites after the line opened at 7½ at William Hill.

“That was our biggest decision Saturday. We needed UNLV bad,” William Hill sports book director Nick Bogdanovich said. “Everyone in the world needed Reno. Every parlay in the world had (UNR) and over (147).”

The Rebels will host Utah State on Wednesday night before closing out their regular season Saturday at Fresno State. UNLV, currently in last place in the Mountain West, will play in the first round of its conference tournament here March 8.

Bogdanovich projects the Rebels to be 6-point underdogs to Utah State, which beat UNLV by 16 points on Jan. 7 and crushed Air Force 89-58 on Saturday.

UPSET SPECIALS

The day before “Moonlight” upset “La La Land” for best picture in a shocking finish at the Academy Awards, Brigham Young stunned Gonzaga (29-1) as a 21-point underdog in a 79-71 win Saturday night in Spokane, Washington.

William Hill didn’t post a money line on the game, but Bogdanovich said the Cougars probably would’ve been about 150-1 underdogs. Those were the money-line odds on the Brooklyn Nets, who were 21-point underdogs Saturday to the Golden State Warriors, who won but didn’t cover in a 112-95 victory.

“We usually shut it off around 15 points, which is 28-1 to 30-1 on the money line,” Bogdanovich said. “We just put up the money line because it was Golden State and we do mass business on Golden State.”

Bogdanovich said William Hill will post money lines for every game in the NCAA Tournament.

“I still think Gonzaga can win it,” he said. “BYU and Gonzaga play each other two or three times a year. They know each other well. The Cougars weren’t intimidated. Gonzaga had an off night and BYU had a good night. I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

BACK TO THE FUTURES

The Westgate has futures odds on 149 college teams to win the NCAA Tournament. Westgate sports book director Jay Kornegay said he has booked four bets on UNLV at 9,999-1, the biggest number the computer holds.

He also has written tickets on Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne, Texas-Arlington and Louisiana-Monroe. In fact, the only teams he hasn’t taken action on are Boise State (500-1) and Davidson (2,000-1).

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.