49ers come calling on 20th-ranked Cardinals

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

12/05/2009 - Louisville, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 20th-ranked Louisville Cardinals of the Big East Conference welcome the Charlotte 49ers of the Atlantic 10 to Freedom Hall this evening.

Charlotte enters this contest with a 5-1 record, and four of the five wins have come by double figures. Still, it is important to note that the lone loss came against Duke by a margin of 42 points, and considering that the 49ers were outclassed in that tilt, a similar result figures to be possible this evening. Afterall, the team's victories have come over the likes of UNC Asheville and Elon, a far cry from tonight's level of competition.

Louisville bounced back strong from its lone loss this season with an 80-48 romp over Stetson on Wednesday. The Cardinals are 5-1, and the schedule has been rather soft thus far. Rick Pitino's club will continue to play weak non- conference foes until Big East play begins on December 30th against South Florida. Clearly, league play will yield a number of stiff challenges.

It is somewhat surprising that Louisville owns just a narrow 16-15 lead in its all-time series with Charlotte. The most recent meeting took place in 2005, that being a 12-point Cardinal victory.

Shamari Spears, a transfer from Boston College, has clearly been the best player for Charlotte this season. The frontcourt standout is scoring 21.8 ppg on 58.8 percent shooting from the floor, and he is an 81.8 percent free throw shooter as well. Spears is pulling down 5.8 rpg and figures to draw plenty of attention from Louisville. The only other double-digit scorer for the 49ers is DiJuan Harris with 10.5 ppg. Charlotte is netting 78.0 ppg while limiting opponents to 74.3 ppg on 40.5 percent shooting from the field. Against East Carolina earlier this week, the 49ers got 17 points and six assists from Harris, while Spears finished with a mere 12 points. Phil Jones tallied 10 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Charlotte, which earned a 37-3 advantage in bench points and a 22-9 edge in fast-break points.

Louisville is scoring a healthy 81.0 ppg this season, and the team is limiting its opponents to 63.3 ppg on 38.7 percent shooting from the floor. Samardo Samuels is scoring 16.3 ppg to pace the Cardinals, as he is shooting 54.2 percent from the field. In addition to that offensive output, Samuels is pulling down a team-high 7.0 rpg. Edgar Sosa provides 14.0 ppg as the only other double-digit scorer on the roster for Pitino. Still, Jerry Smith (9.7 ppg) and Preston Knowles (9.6 ppg) are more than capable of pitching in offensively. Smith actually led the team with 17 points in the victory over Stetson last time out, while Samuels and Sosa tallied 15 points apiece. Louisville connected on 61.7 percent of its field goal attempts in that clash, including a 50 percent effort from three-point range. Defensively, the club forced 18 turnovers and permitted 35.4 percent shooting.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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