FIBA World Cup Odds, Best Bets Today: Expert Picks for Dominican Republic vs. Puerto Rico (September 1) - The Action Network

We're onto Round 2 of the FIBA World Cup with another eight-game slate of matchups Friday. Our Action Network analysts —  Brandon Anderson, Joe Dellera and Bryan Fonseca — have been all over the first week of games and they gave out a bunch picks for Friday's games and the tournament in the latest episode of the BUCKETS podcast.

Check our experts' analysis and best bets for Friday's FIBA World Cup slate below.

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Friday, Sept. 1

4 a.m. ET

ESPN+

Serbia Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-7.5 -120	170.5 -110o / -110u	-380

Italy Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+7.5 +100	170.5 -110o / -110u	+300

Brandon Anderson: Serbia has really breezed through group play so far.

Even without Nikola Jokic, and in what looked like a tricky, competitive group, Serbia has coasted to wins with margins of 42 points, 17 points, and 32 points. Stefan Jovic is lighting up the assist boards (shouts Joe on that +400 call!) and this team is playing like a well-oiled machine. I think Serbia could be a real threat to make the final round if they keep this up.

I’m not sure Italy will be as stern a test as this line implies. Are we sure this Italian team is as good as usual? This feels like a team in transition, and we’ve seen that in the results, particularly in their poor shooting. Italy lost a close one to the Dominican Republic, and they barely even beat the 0-3 host Philippines in the finale.

Italy is scrappy and finds a way to hang around, and they beat this team by a point earlier this month in the run up to the World Cup, but I’ll trust Serbia to pull away late like they’ve done so far.

Pick: Serbia -7.5

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Friday, Sept. 1

4:40 a.m. ET

ESPN+

USA Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-26.5 +100	181.5 -110o / -110u	—

Montenegro Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+26.5 -120	181.5 -110o / -110u	—

Joe Dellera: One of the issues with Team USA is they are relatively undersized with Jaren Jackson Jr. playing center and the resistance to playing Walker Kessler for extended minutes outside of garbage time. This has not truly been exposed yet as the Americans have not played a significant NBA talent on the interior.

Enter Nikola Vucevic. Vucevic has destroyed JJJ in head-to-head matchups. He has averaged 13 rebounds per game and has never recorded fewer than 10 in five career matchups.

I expect Vucevic to continue that success in this spot and control the glass in this game even if Team USA wins handily. I initially grabbed this at 7.5, but 8.5 is fine as well at 10+ at the plus number.

Pick: Nikola Vucevic Over 8.5 Rebounds | 10+ (+160)

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Friday, Sept. 1

8 a.m. ET

ESPN+

Dominican Republic Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-9.5 -125	172.5 -110o / -110u	-600

Puerto Rico Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+9.5 +105	172.5 -110o / -110u	+450

Bryan Fonseca: My Puerto Ricans should not win this game, but if you know anything about their rivalry with the Dominican Republic – regardless of sport – these games are often close.

The most likely scenario that we get a close matchup between a PR vs. DR is with Puerto Rico’s 3-point shooting against drop coverage. The Boricuas are shooting 41% from three during the World Cup, third behind only Serbia and Canada among teams still alive in Round 2. They’ve shot at least 35.7% in all three contests so far, including a 16-of-34 display in their 18-point win over China to end Round 1.

The Dominican Republic? They hit 41% of their 3s against Italy, but just 20% and 21.4% against Angola and the Philippines, respectively, and are just 29.3% from deep – only Italy is worst (28.7%) among alive teams.

I’m not sure Puerto Rico can shoot their way to a win, but I like them to shoot their way to a cover behind the accuracy of Tremont Waters, Stephen Thompson Jr, Chris Ortiz, Jordan Howard and others.

Pick: Puerto Rico +9.5 (+105)

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Friday, Sept. 1

8:40 a.m. ET

ESPN+

Lithuania Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-6.5 -120	160.5 -110o / -110u	-315

Greece Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+6.5 +100	160.5 -110o / -110u	+255

Anderson: Why are we still giving Greece this much credit?

This team was no test for the Americans in group play, and they barely made this stage at all, struggling to put away a very mediocre New Zealand squad in the finale. Greece has toughness but not a ton of finesse, and I think they’re one of the worst teams left in the winner’s side of the bracket.

Lithuania is a proud basketball nation with two top-four finishes at the World Cup and five at the Olympics in the last three decades. This is a well-coached team that adds up to more than the sum of its parts. And they won’t have any issues with the Greeks’ physicality with Jonas Valanciunas and Donatas Motiejunas manning the paint.

Expect Lithuania to win the battle on the interior, and if they do, this thing is a wrap.

This line feels like a gift. Lithuania has won its three games by at least 20, and this matchup feels a bit similar to a Montenegro team they just cruised past. This is my favorite side of the tournament so far. Expect Lithuania to cruise to another double-digit win.

Pick: Lithuania -6.5

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Florida vs Utah Odds, Picks, Prediction | College Football Betting Preview (Thursday, August 31) - The Action Network

Florida vs Utah Odds

Thursday, Aug. 31

8 p.m. ET

ESPN

Florida Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
+4 -110	43.5 -110o / -110u	+158

Utah Odds
Spread	Total	Moneyline
-4 -110	43.5 -110o / -110u	-190

For a couple of games each year, we're blessed with a heavyweight nonconference matchup. While it will be the second year in a row that the Florida Gators and Utah Utes play, this time it will be on the opening Thursday night of Week 1.

The 2022 matchup between these two saw Utah come up just short in Gainesville by a score of 29-26. Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson impressed by making some insane plays and putting up 100-plus yards both through the air and on the ground.

Now, Richardson is gone, and the Gators will travel to Rice-Eccles Stadium. But the status of Utah’ quarterback Cam Rising is also in question, leaving a massive question mark over the game.

So, where does the betting value lie for Florida vs. Utah? Let's dive into Thursday's odds and make a pick.

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Check out our NCAAF Betting Hub for more college football previews, predictions, news and analysis.

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Florida Gators

Week 1 may have been the highlight of the season for Florida last year. After this huge win, it went on to finish the regular season at 6-6, just barely squeaking into a bowl game.

A lot will be changing on this offense following the departure of Anthony Richardson. Replacing him is former Wisconsin signal-caller Graham Mertz. Mertz started 32 games in his four years at Wisconsin, throwing for 5,399 yards and 38 touchdowns.

Mertz never did quite live up to his recruiting ranking at Wisconsin, though. The offenses in Madison lacked firepower under his watch, ranking 62nd in Success Rate and 82nd in explosiveness last season.

There won't be much more to work with in Gainesville, as Florida returns just six starters and will be without three of its top four receivers from a year ago.

This carries over to the defensive side as well, where the Gators will bring back only five starters after losing their top five tacklers from 2022. Using my own metrics, Florida’s defense ranks 73rd in returning experience on defense.

Florida ranks 109th in Phil Steele’s experience chart and comes in at 66th in net returning production.

We will likely see a much different Florida offense under Billy Napier this season than what we saw a year ago with Richardson. Mertz is a very different type of quarterback, which may play into Napier’s strengths as a coach.

However, I’m not convinced we'll see a massive improvement from Mertz on the road in Week 1.

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Cam Rising returns for another season in Salt Lake City after throwing for 3,034 yards and 26 touchdowns a season ago. After leading Utah to a Pac-12 Championship for the second year in a row, Rising sustained an ACL injury that knocked him out of the Rose Bowl.

This line has fluctuated wildly based on the status of Rising’s knee. It's now being reported that Rising is doubtful to play in this game, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.

If Rising is not ready to go, it would be junior quarterback Bryson Barnes who steps in under center. Barnes played in relief of Rising last year, throwing for 430 yards, four touchdowns and two picks in his limited playing time.

Outside of Rising, the other big injury news for Utah centers on tight end Brant Kuithe. Kuithe was the team’s top receiver last year before suffering a knee injury after four games that knocked him out for the remainder of the season. If Kuithe is able to play, Utah’s offense will be much more potent after losing two of its top three receivers from a year ago.

Overall, Utah returns seven starters on offense, including three offensive linemen. It also added receivers Emery Simmons (Indiana), Mycah Pittman (Florida State) and Landen King (Auburn) via the transfer portal.

Utah is in good shape defensively as well. It returns nine starters on that side of the ball, putting itself at 10th in FBS in net returning production. Clark Phillips III is a big loss to the NFL at cornerback, but essentially everyone else is back on a defense that ranked 29th in Success Rate a year ago.

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Florida vs Utah

Betting Pick & Prediction

This game essentially comes down to Rising’s injury, which is already being priced into the market.

The line on this game may move around dramatically between the time I’m writing this and kickoff. But either way, I'll be on the Utes at the right number.

Utah is one of the best teams in the Pac-12 and will be looking to compete for a potential College Football Playoff berth if everything goes right. Meanwhile, Florida’s trajectory is in a much different place with a new quarterback and a coach still looking to find his footing.

Rising is an electric player, and I have faith in him being able to move the ball efficiently against Florida’s defense. If he doesn’t play, I believe the Utes have been planning for this and still will be able to get by with Barnes under center.

If Rising plays, I would take Utah up to the key number of seven. If Rising is out, I would still take the Utes up to -3.5.

Pick: Utah -4.5 (Play to -7 if Rising Plays)

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Google Details TPUv4 and its Crazy Optically Reconfigurable AI Network - ServeTheHome

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_14 Large

At Hot Chips 2023, Google showed off its crazy optically reconfigurable AI network. The company is doing optical circuit switching to achieve better performance, lower power, and more flexibility for its AI training cluster. The more amazing part is that they have had this in production for years.

This is being done live, so please excuse typos.

Google Details its Crazy Optically Reconfigurable AI Network

The big goal of this is to tie together the Google TPU chips.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_02

Here is the 7nm Google TPUv4. We expect this week we will start hearing more about TPUv5. Google usually can do papers and presentations about one-generation old hardware. The TPU v4i was the inference version, but this is more the TPUv4 focused talk.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_03

Google says it overprovisions power compared to typical power so it can fulfill a 5ms service time SLA. So TDP on the chips is much higher, but that is to allow bursting to meet those SLA bursts.

Here is the TPUv4 architecture diagram. Google builds these TPU chips not just to be a single accelerator, but to scale out and run as part of large-scale infrastructure.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_04

Here is the Google TPUv4 versus TPUv3 stats in one of the clearest tables we have ever seen on this.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_05

Google has more than doubled the peak FLOPS, but reduced the power between TPUv3 and TPUv4.

Google has a SparseCore accelerator built into the TPUv4.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_06

Here is Google’s TPUv4 SparseCore performance.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_07

The board itself has four TPUv4 chips and is liquid-cooled. Google said that they had to rework data centers and operations to change to liquid cooling, but the power savings are worth it. The valve on the right controls flow through the liquid cooling tubes. Google says it is like a fan speed controller, but for liquid.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect

Google also says that it is using PCIe Gen3 x16 back to the host since this was a 2020 design.

Google has power entering from the top of rack like many data centers, but then it has a number of interconnects. Within a rack, Google can use electrical DACs, but outside of a rack, Google needs to use optical cables.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_09

Each system has 64 racks with 4096 interconnected chips. For some sense, NVIDIA’s AI clusters at 256 nodes have half as many GPUs.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_10

Also at the end of the racks, we see a CDU rack. If you want to learn more about liquid cooling, you can see our How Liquid Cooling Servers Works with Gigabyte and CoolIT. We are going to have more liquid cooling content soon. Google says the flow rates of liquid are higher than water in a hook and ladder firetruck’s hose.

Each rack is a 4x4x4 cube (64 nodes) with optical circuit switching (OCS) between the TPUs. Within the rack, the connections are DACs. The faces of the cube are all optical.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_11

Here is a look at the OCS. Instead of using an electrical switch, using the OCS gives a direct connection between chips. Google has internal 2D MEMS arrays, lenses, cameras and more. Avoiding all of the networking overhead allows sharing of data more efficiently. As a quick aside, this in some ways feels akin to DLP TVs.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_12

Google said that it has over 16,000 connections and enough distance of fiber in the super pod that it can encircle the state of Rhode Island.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_13

Because there is so much point-to-point communication, it requires a lot of fiber strands.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_14 Large

Beyond that each pool can be connected to larger pools.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_15

The OCS, because it is reconfigurable, can yield higher utilization of the nodes.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_16

Google can then change topologies by adjusting the optical routing.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_17

Here Google is showing the benefit of different topologies.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_18

This is important since Google says that the changes in model needs can drive system changes.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_19

Here is Google’s scaling on a log scale with linear speedups on up to 3072 chips.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_20

Google also increased the on-chip memory to 128MB to keep data access local.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_21

Here is Google’s comparison against the NVIDIA A100 on a performance-per-watt basis.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_22

Here is the PaLM model training over 6144 TPUs in two pods.

Google Machine Learning Supercomputer With An Optically Reconfigurable Interconnect _Page_23

That is a huge number!

Final Words

It is about time for Google to start talking about the TPUv5, and it happens that Google NEXT is this week. Still, this optical interconnect is a really innovative technology.

Something that is pretty clear now, is that Google is solving large problems with huge infrastructure. It has the opportunity to push into the AI space more. It is just a question of how fast Google will start pushing its AI hardware and cloud services against NVIDIA while also needing to buy NVIDIA GPUs for its customers using those instead of TPUs.

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US says it and partners have taken down notorious 'Qakbot' hacking network - Reuters

WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Tuesday said an international law enforcement operation had taken down the notorious "Qakbot" malware platform used extensively by cybercriminals in a variety of financial crimes.

First discovered more than a decade ago, Qakbot is commonly spread through malicious, boobytrapped emails sent to unsuspecting victims.

The U.S. Department of Justice said the operation, nicknamed Duck Hunt, involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Romania and Latvia.

U.S. attorney Martin Estrada said the move against Qakbot was the most significant technological and financial operation ever led by the department against a botnet. The term botnet is used to refer to an interconnected network of infected computers that hackers use to spread viruses.

"Together we have taken down Qakbot and saved countless victims from future attacks," he told a news conference.

Security researchers say they believe Qakbot originates from Russia and has attacked organizations around the world, from Germany to Argentina.

A computer keyboard lit by a displayed cyber code is seen in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

Estrada said Qakbot malware had infected more than 700,000 victim computers, facilitated ransomware deployments, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to businesses, healthcare providers, and government agencies.

As part of the operation, agencies seized 52 servers in the United States and abroad.

Investigators found evidence that between October 2021 and April 2023, Qakbot administrators received fees corresponding to approximately $58 million in ransoms paid by victims.

In order to cripple the cybercrime network, the FBI said it had redirected Qakbot internet traffic to bureau-controlled servers that effectively uininstalled the corresponding malware from victim computers.

In doing so, the FBI said it had actively removed malicious files from private systems while not viewing or collecting any personal information.

In a statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray said victims ranged from financial institutions on the East Coast to a critical infrastructure government contractor in the Midwest to a medical device manufacturer on the West Coast.

"The FBI neutralized this far-reaching criminal supply chain, cutting it off at the knees," he said.

Reporting by Christopher Bing and David Ljunggren; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Christopher Bing

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Award-winning reporter covering the intersection between technology and national security with a focus on how the evolving cybersecurity landscape affects government and business.

David Ljunggren

Thomson Reuters

Covers Canadian political, economic and general news as well as breaking news across North America, previously based in London and Moscow and a winner of Reuters’ Treasury scoop of the year.

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