First, I Needed to Understand the Basics
So, first thing I did was try to find out what this spread thing even means. I found out that it is basically like a prediction, how much one team is supposed to win by. The favorite has a minus sign, and the underdog has a plus sign, easy enough, it made sense in my head at that point.
Looking at the Actual Numbers
Next, I went looking for this Louisville and Murray State game's spread. Found a bunch of those betting websites, looked kinda complicated, but I finally saw some numbers. I kept seeing something like Louisville -6.5 and Murray State +6.5. The numbers changed a little bit between the sites I went to, but they were all pretty close.
Figuring Out What it All Meant
So, with the -6.5 next to Louisville, I finally realized they were the favorites. That means the people who know this stuff thought Louisville would win by, like, 7 points or more. Murray State, with the +6.5, they were the underdogs. They could lose, but as long as they didn't lose by 7 or more, bets on them would still "win."
Trying to See if it Made Sense
Now, I wanted to see if this spread seemed right. I looked up some stuff about the two teams like past games, and who was playing well. Louisville seemed pretty good, winning most of their recent games. Murray State, they were okay, but not as strong, at least that's what it looked like to me from what I could find.
My Final Thoughts
Based on just my basic digging, that -6.5 spread for Louisville seemed kinda reasonable. I mean, they looked like the stronger team, playing better lately, so it made sense they'd be expected to win by a few points. I thought it was pretty cool that I could take this information and have some sort of reasonable understanding of the teams involved.
Important: I am in no way qualified to make any kind of financial decision. This whole thing was just me messing around, trying to understand something new. Don't go betting your money based on what some dude on the internet figured out!
