CNOTES COLLEGE BASKETBALL BEST BETS/ NOTES/NEWS/GOSSIP !

[Cnotes53]

Tuesday, December 23​

Game	Time(ET)	Pick	Units
GRAM at OSU	02:00 PM	GRAM +28.5*****	+500
FAU at UCF	02:00 PM	UCF -7.5*****	+500
LINW at MOSU	03:00 PM	MOSU -2.5	+500
UCRV at UCLA	04:00 PM	UCRV +24.5*****	+500
IDHO at CSB	05:00 PM	IDHO -5.5*****	+500
MORG at LMU	06:00 PM	LMU -24.5	+500
HARV at SJU	06:00 PM	SJU -25.5*****	+500
VILL at HALL	07:00 PM	HALL -1.5*****	+500

 

[Cnotes53]

CNOTES COLLEGE HOOPS DECEMBER BEST BETS !

12/23/2025.............2 - 4 - 0..................33.33%.............- 12.00
12/22/2025.............4 - 2 - 0..................66.66%.............+ 9.00
12/21/2925..............9 - 15 - 0...............37.50%.............- 37.50
12.20/2025............ 11 - 19 - 0................36.66%...........- 49.50
12/19/2025.............9 - 10 - 0.................47.36%............- 10.00
12/18/2025...............6 - 6 - 0..................50.00%............- 3.00
12/17/2025...............5 - 10 - 0...............33.33%.............- 25.00
12/16/2025.............10 - 9 - 0.................55..00%............+ 0.50
12/15/2025...............6 - 3 - 0..................66.66%............+ 13.50
12/14/2025..............3 - 10 - 0................23.07%.............- 40.00
12/132025.............17.- 18 - 0................48.52%..............- 14.00
12/12/2025................4 - 3 - 0................57.14%..............+ 3.50
12/11/2025................4 - 6 - 0................40.00%..............- 13.00
12/10/2025................8 - 5 - 0................61.53................+ 12.50
12/09/2025................6 - 5 - 1................54.54%..............+ 2.50
12/08/2025................2 - 3 - 0................40.00%..............- 6.50
12/07/2025...............10 - 4 - 0...............71.42%...............+ 28.00
12/06/2025...............8 - 18 - 0...............30.76%...............- 59.00
12/05/2025................8 - 5 - 0...............61.53%...............+ 12.50
12/04/2025................3 - 3 - 0...............50.00%...............- 1.50
12/03/2025................5 - 6 - 0...............45.45%...............- 8.00
12/01/2025................6 - 4 - 0...............60.00%...............+ 8.00

TOTALS...............146 - 168 - 1...............46.49%................- 189.00

 

[Cnotes53]

Wednesday’s 6-pack:
— Villanova 64, Seton Hall 56- Wildcats shot 10-23 on arc in Big East opener.
— St John’s 85, Harvard 59- Red Storm out-rebounded Harvard, 39-22.
— Cal-Bakersfield 64, Idaho 63- Roadrunners won despite being 3-8 on foul line.
— Campbell 102, Green Bay 79- Camels shot 14-24 on arc, scored a ridiculous 1.54 ppp
— UCLA 97, Cal-Riverside 65- Bruins are 10-3, but only 3-3 vs top 100 teams.
— UCF 85, Florida Atlantic 80- 11-1 Knights were down 14 in the first half.

Quote of the Day
“No one felt worse than I did after that game. And I think it’s important to continue to move forward and realize that it’s what happened. It would be crazy of me to deny the truth of what happened and to live in this reality where if I tried to block it out, I don’t think that’s doing any good.”
Chargers QB Justin Herbert; Chargers play Houston this week

Wednesday’s quiz
In an episode of the old TV show Magnum PI, which actor, who played one of the more popular villains in the Batman TV show, played a jewel thief whose daughter was also a jewel thief?

Tuesday’s quiz
Brian Billick coached the Baltimore Ravens before John Harbaugh.

Monday’s quiz
Former NFL quarterback Chase Daniel is the all-time leader in passing yardage for the Missouri Tigers.

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Wednesday’s Den: 20 of my favorite non-sports movies…….​

20) The Gambler (2014)— Remake of a James Caan movie from the mid-70’s. College professor (Mark Wahlberg) seems to have an excellent life, but he has a huge gambling problem which drags him down. John Goodman plays one of the people he owes money to; he is very good in this. Jessica Lange plays the gambler’s mother, Brie Larson is his student/girlfriend.

19) Moon Over Parador (1988)— Richard Dreyfuss is an actor who is hired to stand in for the dictator of a Latin American country who suddenly dies. Jonathan Winters is a weird CIA agent whose wife is Polly Holliday, who played Flo in the old TV series Alice.
Sonia Braga, Raul Julia, Sammy Davis Jr and Dana Delany are all in this movie.

18) The Verdict (1982)— Paul Newman is a ambulance-chasing lawyer who started drinking too much when his marriage ended; he is handed a winning case that should be lucrative, but winning it is easier said than done. His friend is played by Jack Warden, one of my all-time favorites.
James Mason, Bruce Willis are also in this movie, which is a little dated now; no cellphones. The lawyer plays a pinball machine in the bar he frequents, but it is a very good movie.

17) Double Jeopardy (1999)— Unjustly jailed for her husband’s murder, a woman does six years in jail, until she gets paroled and realizes that the husband isn’t dead, so she sets out to find him and her son, who it turns out have moved to New Orleans.
Ashley Judd is the woman, Tommy Lee Jones is her parole officer, Bruce Greenwood is the grifter husband, Roma Maffia is a woman in jail who advises the woman on the best way to get paroled. Movie is a little intense, but it is very good.

16) Autumn in New York (2000)— Mostly a sad movie about a terminally ill young woman who falls for an aging playboy who owns a restaurant; when he finds out she is very ill, the playboy tries everything he can do to find a doctor who can help her get better.
Winona Ryder is the young woman, Richard Gere is the playboy, JK Simmons is the surgeon. Anthony LaPaglia, Jill Hennessy, Sherry Stringfield, Vera Farmiga are also in the movie, which is very good, but you’ll need a handkerchief.

15) Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)— Joe Mantegna plays a sportswriter who realizes that his 7-year old son is a chess prodigy; no one knows how/why. The parents hire a chess teacher and he begins to win tournaments, but then expectations get very high, and the kid’s interest begins to die down.
Excellent cast: Mantegna, Joan Allen is the mom, Ben Kingsley is the chess coach, Laurence Fishburne is a guy who plays speed chess in the park and who also coaches the kid. William H Macy, David Paymer, Josh Mostel are also in the movie, which is very good.

14) Good Will Hunting (1997)— A janitor at MIT can do complicated math problems better than the professors can, but he also has a criminal record, and has to get counseling for that. Robin Williams is great as the counselor, Matt Damon is the smart guy.
Ben Affleck is one of the smart guy’s friends, Minnie Driver is the smart guy’s girlfriend, but the scenes with Wiliams/Damon are epic. One of Robin Williams’ finest roles.

13) Dave (1993)— Guy who looks just like the President runs a temp job service in Washington; when the real president has a stroke while screwing around with his mistress, the guy (Kevin Kline) is hired as the stand-in president. Sigourney Weaver is the First Lady.
Frank Langella/Kevin Dunn are in the President’s cabinet, Ving Rhames is a Secret Service agent who protects the President. Charles Grodin is great in his smaller role as a friend of the look-alike, who wins up help balancing the country’s budget.

12) Begin Again (2013)— Down-and-out music executive stumbles into a Manhattan bar and discovers a young singer who can resurrect his career.
Keira Knightley is the singer, Adam Levine is her boyfriend, a popular musician who screws around on her and gets the boot. Mark Ruffalo is the music executive, and James Corden kind of steals the show as the singer’s old friend from back in England.
Hailee Steinfeld (Mrs Josh Allen these days) plays Ruffalo’s daughter, Catherine Keener is his wife. Rob Morrow, CeeLo Green are also in this movie, mostly a nice movie.

10) The Big Short (2015)— Group of investors bet against the US mortgage market in 2006-07 and are surprised to find out that the market is flawed/corrupt.
One investor is an eccentric ex-doctor who controls billions of dollars and basically risks it all to make even more money, but it it is going to take time, and the people whose money he works with are not terribly patient.
Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Marisa Tomei are all in this movie. Michael Lewis wrote the book, same guy who wrote Moneyball.

9) Absence of Malice (1981)— Sally Field plays a reporter who investigates a liquor wholesaler who is suspected of a murder- his father had been a mobster. There is no evidence that the son is guilty, but the authorities want to pressure him into giving them information.
The wholesaler has an iron-clad excuse that guarantees his innocence, but he won’t use it because he’d have to tell the authorities that a female friend of his had an abortion and 45 years ago, that wasn’t something you wanted to be known.
The wholesaler turns the tables on the authorities and makes them look incompetent.
Paul Newman is the wholesaler; with Sally Field, Willard Brimley, an intense, very good movie.

8) Leap of Faith (1992)— Steve Martin plays a traveling preacher whose bus breaks down, stranding his crew in a drought-stricken Kansas town. Miracles ensue. Liam Neeson, Debra Winger, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meat Loaf are all in this cast.
The preacher is a fraud, but people come out and give him a lot of money; the town where his bus breaks down is going through a drought— people want to know is he can make it rain.
There is one great scene near the end of the movie where kid who had been crippled in a car accident wants the preacher to heal his legs. It makes the movie worth watching.

7) Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)— Two piano-playing brothers have an act that is struggling, so they hire a beautiful singer to join the show, and they suddenly become more popular.
Jeff/Beau Bridges are the brothers, Michelle Pfeiffer is the singer; when one brother and the singer start messing around, tensions run high, even though the group is doing very well on stage.
Very good movie, but then again, I’d watch a movie if it was Michelle Pfeiffer reading names out of the phone book.

6) Molly’s Game (2017)— Young woman runs high stakes poker games for celebrities/rich guys, but when members of the Russian mob enter the game, things get complicated. This is a true story, and as we’re learning nowadays, real life is often stranger than fiction.
This movie comes after the book was written; Jessica Chastain plays Molly, Idris Elba is her lawyer, Kevin Costner has a smaller role as her demanding father.

5) Lost In Translation (2003)— Bill Murray plays a washed-up actor who is in Tokyo getting paid $2M to do a whiskey commercial. He meets Scarlett Johansson in the hotel bar and they become friends.
Apparently every American visiting Tokyo stays in the same hotel; the actor/woman, whose husband is a photographer who largely ignores her, they become friends and go out to dinner and have probing conversations, all platonic.
It is a nice movie with a vague but I think happy ending.

4) Rounders (1998)— Law student decides he’d rather play high stakes poker than finish law school. The scenes with Matt Damon and his law professor (Martin Landau) are excellent. Same guys who wrote this movie wrote the great Showtime series Billions.
Edward Norton is excellent as a grifter/degenerate gambler who often tries to cheat at cards; he gets himself and the law student beaten up. John Malkovich is a Russian who runs the poker room where a lot of the games are played. John Turturro plays Joey Knish, a veteran gambler who grinds out a living the hard way, but he does it.
This is a very good movie.

3) The Bodyguard (1992)— Whitney Houston is a famous singer with a contract on her head; Kevin Costner is the ex-Secret Service hired to protect her.
Protecting a famous singer is a lot different than protecting a politician; there is tension between the singer/bodyguard, but when the singer’s young son almost gets murdered, she listens to the bodyguard and they wind up OK.
Lot of good music in this movie; when Whitney Houston passed way in real life, Kevin Costner spoked at her memorial service.

2) Last Vegas (2013)— Four old friends get together in Las Vegas for the bachelor party of the one bachelor in group (Michael Douglas) who is marrying a woman 40 years younger than him. It is Douglas, Robert Deniro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline. Mary Steenburgen plays a singer in a Las Vegas bar who crosses paths with the friends.

Morgan Freeman’s character won $87,000 playing blackjack in this movie; in The Hangover, the one guy wins $85,000 playing blackjack, so on one of my trips to Las Vegas, I sat down at a table and suggested that blackjack must be an easy game, since so many people win a lot of money in the movies. I got a dirty look, a scowl and I shut up and was glad to break even.

1) A Few Good Men (1992)— Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson ate the stars; Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak, JT Walsh as supporting actors is pretty strong.

A military lawyer tries to prove that two Marines charged with murdering a fellow Marine were simply following their commander’s orders. The last scene, with Jack Nicholson on the witness stand, is tremendous.

 

[Udog]

No games today. The season resumes Saturday.

 

[Udog]

Merry Christmas!