Editor’s Note: For more than two years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series, the first two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback, the second two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 1.4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,320 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 1.4% might not be enormous, it’s positive over a big sample size. For what it’s worth.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. Ken Pomeroy’s KenPom is heavily used in making College Basketball picks.
Not the best board today, but here’s one:
Arkansas vs. Oral Roberts
The thought here seems to be that Oral Roberts’s three-point shooting is too good, and Arkansas’s three-point defense is too bad, and that this shifts the expected outcome from the underlying numbers.
The problem with that line of thinking is that those underlying numbers come from somewhere, and while there might not be another mismatch as glaring in Arkansas’s favor, there are plenty of smaller mismatches that add up across the scope of the game.
Pick: Arkansas -11.5 (-110). Low confidence.
