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 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 0.4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,267 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.4% 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.
We’re back.
These picks’ track record is very close to dipping below even money, and with poor history on regular season conference basketball games, we didn’t want to have that be the arena in which we dropped into negative ROI. Our conference tournament history’s decent, though, so we’re back, at least intermittently, and we’ve got one play today, from a game between the Mastodons and the Phoenix that features a man named PJ Pipes:
Horizon League First Round: Purdue-Fort Wayne @ Green Bay
Bettors have pushed this total down to where it’s at from an opening at 147.5, which seems like a bet on Green Bay to control the tempo.
Don’t be so sure they’ll do that.
In previous meetings this year, the games were 73 and 68 possessions long. KenPom projects tonight’s to go 68 possessions, so while those are just two data points, they at least don’t encourage a deviation from the norm. And while IPFW’s possession count’s been lower in the weeks since those matchups, they’ve also been playing the Horizon League’s slower competition—Cleveland State and Detroit Mercy are each in the slower half of the conference. Factor in that IPFW is legitimately one of the most efficient shooting teams in the nation and that each team is woeful defensively, and any non-tempo-based bet on the under doesn’t have a whole lot of justification.
I couldn’t find anything on Terrance Thompson’s injury status—the Green Bay freshman has started 15 of UWGB’s 24 games, but he missed Saturday’s victory over UIC. Evan Miyakawa’s BPR’s (Bayesian Performance Ratings) have Thompson better defensively than the average Phoenix and poorer offensively, though, so even if he is out again, that should only help the over.
Pick: Over 144 (-110). Low confidence.
