Not the Pro Bowl of Yesterday – February 4

It’s surely not the Pro Bowl that most of us grew up with. This afternoon, all-stars from the AFC will take on all-stars from the NFC in the annual NFL Pro Bowl. For the second time, the Pro Bowl will be played as a flag football game. Yes, good ‘ole flag football. That’s the result of the pillow fights that were occurring in the year’s leading up to last year’s game. Last year was the first time the Pro Bowl featured a flag football game.

Flag football, real football. We don’t really care. We can bet on it just the same. This year’s Pro Bowl also features a different format. The Pro Bowl is not just a flag football game. It’s actually a series of games plus some skills competitions all rolled into one event called the Pro Bowl. It’s the only thing close to football on today’s sports schedule.

Pro Bowl Format

So, after years of players not playing defense and essentially playing touch football in the Pro Bowl, the NFL decided to change it. The worry, of course, was star players getting hurt in a meaningless game. At the beginning of the 2022 season, it was decided that the Pro Bowl would change to a flag football game in 2023. This year, the league decided to give it more of an NHL All-Star game-type flair.

The NFL decided to re-brand the Pro Bowl as the Pro Bowl Games this year. The event began on Thursday. Teams began the competition then. There are a series of skills events that players from each conference compete in. Each conference receives points for the finishes of their respective players. These events include things like Precision Passing, Gridiron Gauntlet, Kick-Tac-Toe, and Move the Chains.

The great thing for bettors is that they can wager on each of the individual skills events. Oddsmakers didn’t put much time or effort into the odds on these though. All the events were listed as a pick ‘em with equal -110 odds on both sides of the bet. 

It’s the same for the actual Pro Bowl flag football games. Yes, games. There isn’t just one flag football game at the Pro Bowl. There are a series of three. The winner of the Pro Bowl – the AFC won last year – is the team with the most points at the end of Sunday. It pays to be a Pro Bowl winner too. Each member of the winning team will receive $88,000. The losers share is $44,000.

What If You Made 100 Picks

Here at Sports Hub, our elite handicappers routinely win 55 to 60 percent of their picks over time. Often, they will have streaks of 60 and 70 percent wins over a few weeks. But, what if you were to make 100 bets in a single day? Crazy, right? Not here at Sports Hub. 

Our friends at Scores & Stats, the Sas Insider, put 103 picks into the Sports Hub picks database yesterday. They ended up No. 1 on yesterday’s leaderboard. Like our own Sports Hub Insider and Sports Hub Free Picks, Sas Insider uses its vast network of contacts to make winning sports picks a daily habit.

Let’s check it out.

• 103 picks: Sas Insider went 59-44 – that’s 57.28 percent – and won $923 yesterday. Imagine winning 57.28 percent of all of your bets. You’d be a winner and would be adding to your bankroll. Hop on the Sports Hub money train! Join the movement! Oh, and by the way, Sas Insider is up $1528 over the last three days.
• Soccer guy: Geovanny Araya is our leading soccer expert. Yesterday, he correctly predicted four of five international soccer matches and won $580. Geovanny has had a solid week with $850 in winnings over the last three days and $1115 over the last seven.
• Perfect 3-0: Sports Hub expert Jhon Walsh and the Sports Investors each went 3-0 and won $300 yesterday. All three of Jhon’s picks were on college basketball. The Sports Investors picks were a combination of NBA and CBB. 
• Top 5: Rounding out yesterday’s top-5 was Sports Central and Joe Berra. Both ended up 5-2. Sports Central took home $285 while Joe ended up with $280. It’s worth noting that Sports Central has added $745 to its bankroll over the last three days and is up $1408 for the month.

Top Ten CBB, Rivers Gets ASG Nod

It was a wild day in college basketball. A number of huge games were on tap yesterday. Both No. 1 UConn and No. 9 Marquette won their Big East conference games yesterday. There were a number of top ten match-ups yesterday. Keep reading to see how they turned out.

Somehow, an NBA head coach with a 1-2 overall record this season will coach one of the two teams in this year’s NBA All-Star game. Really?

Here’s what’s trending.

• Top 10 battles: No. 3 North Carolina beat No. 7 Duke 93-84 in a matchup of top-10 college basketball teams. That wasn’t the only such matchup. No. 8 Kansas knocked off No. 4 Houston 78-65 in a Big 12 battle. No. 5 Tennessee beat No. 10 Kentucky 103-92 in the other top-10 pairing. The AP Top 25 will probably look a little different next week.

• Doc Rivers: The new Milwaukee Bucks head coach will be the coach of the Eastern Conference for this month’s NBA All-Star game. The title goes to the Eastern Conference coach whose team has the best record at the break. Boston actually has the best record, but Joe Mazzulla represented the East last year, making him ineligible this year. The Bucks have the next best record, so Rivers gets the call.
• Clark closes in on record: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark scored 38 points and the Hawkeyes beat Maryland 93-85 yesterday. Clark is now 66 points away from breaking the NCAA all-time women’s college basketball career scoring record held by Washington’s Kelsey Plum.
• Yet another 60: Stephen Curry put up 60 points last night, but his Golden State Warriors lost to Atlanta 141-134 in overtime. It was the sixth 60-point-plus game this season and the third of those that ended up as a loss for the 60-point scorer.

Pro Bowl Set for Today

The annual Pro Bowl will take place today. The festivities actually started on Thursday with a number of skills competitions. Scoring from those events will be added to today’s three 7-on-7 flag football games to determine the 2024 Pro Bowl winner.

There is more than just the Pro Bowl on today’s schedule.

1. NBA: There are nine NBA games on the schedule today. The Clippers are in Miami in a game that will be broadcast by ESPN beginning at 6:00 p.m. There is also an NBATV doubleheader that starts with Phoenix at Washington this afternoon and ends with Portland at Denver later tonight.
2. NCAAB: Sunday is typically anti-climatic in college basketball after the huge Saturday schedule. While there are only 17 games today, one of those just happens to be another top-10 matchup. No. 2 Purdue takes on No. 6 Wisconsin in a Big Ten showdown in Madison. No. 14 Illinois also plays in the Big Ten today and No. 11 Arizona is at home against Stanford.
3. The Pro Bowl: It’s not real football, but the flag football version of the Pro Bowl is today. You can watch on ABC and ESPN starting at 3:00 p.m. ET.

4. Elite soccer: The Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, La Liga, and Serie A all have matches on the schedule today.
5. PGA Tour: Wyndham Clark shot a ridiculous third round 60 to take the lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The final round starts today. 
6. WTA & ATP Tennis Tours: The finals of the Open Sud de France are today. Borna Coric is taking on Alexander Bublik. The Cordoba Open continues today in Argentina. The Open 13 Provence and Dallas Open are both underway too. On the women’s tour, Diana Schnaider won the Thailand Open and Jelena Ostapenko won the Upper Austria Ladies Linz. Three more tournaments – L&T Mumbai Open, Transylvania Open, Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open – continue today.

If you crave football so much that you’ll watch NFL players playing with flags, the Pro Bowl is today. Otherwise, there is plenty of NBA and college basketball on tap today. There is value out there and you can bet that our Sports Hub handicappers will find it. Jump on their bandwagons and join the fun…and the winning! See you tomorrow.