Editor’s Note: For about 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 last college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ NLCS comeback, the second two months of last college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.3% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,256 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.3% 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. The blurbs aren’t always explanations of the picks—sometimes they are, but often they’re just notes related to the contest, to avoid redundancy. Bill Connelly’s SP+ is heavily used in making College Football picks. Ken Pomeroy’s KenPom is heavily used in making College Basketball picks.
Same note as yesterday, before we get to the picks themselves: We may be pivoting soon into less frequent published bets, at least for a few months. The results aren’t where they’ve been, and we don’t have a great track record with conference games in college basketball. Since our average ROI is still positive, we’re going to keep going, and we may keep going even if it dips slightly negative, but once conference play heats up, it’s likely we’ll be shifting to trying to build a solid futures portfolio and get that average ROI some breathing room. Anyway, if the bets start disappearing for stretches, that’s why.
Jackson State @ Bradley
Jackson State is going through it, “it” being the annual nonconference road slate a lot of HBCU teams undertake to help finance their schools’ athletic departments. It hasn’t been going well—the closest result so far was a 23-point loss at Mississippi State in JSU’s opener. Tonight shouldn’t be much easier than what they’ve been through: Bradley, one of those programs with a sneaky lot of history, is solid again, and should be a thorn in the side of Loyola and Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley.
An issue of concern for the Tigers (that’s Jackson State) is that they haven’t been hitting their expected margins as they lose. In their loss to Mississippi, they trailed by as many as 48 points. In their loss to Louisiana Tech, they trailed by 33. They’ve been sliding through power ratings, and this line’s probably where it is because ratings are trying to find the bottom.
This isn’t always the case, but a slide like that sometimes creates opportunity for us. Basically, if we trust that KenPom’s right about Jackson State (and that seems like the best estimate available), this should be a 14-point spread. Factor into that upcoming schedules (Bradley’s got four games left before New Year’s, three on the road and all of them important), and of every option available today in college hoops, this looks like the best play.
Pick: Jackson State +17 (-110). Low confidence.
