Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 872 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 7% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. More broadly, it’s adequate when compared to conventional annual investments, and instead of taking a year to bring that return, it’s taking between three hours and seven months. In short, Joe’s got a good track record.
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One pick for tonight.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from KenPom, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Akron @ Bowling Green
Bowling Green is, by Dean Oliver’s measurement, the luckiest team in college basketball this system.
Who is Dean Oliver?
I don’t know, to be honest. But I know he created a formula that takes teams’ offensive and defensive efficiencies and compares their expected winning percentage to their actual winning percentage to estimate luck, and by his measurement, Bowling Green has been luckier than anyone else.
What this means, in practice, is that Bowling Green wins a lot of close games. They’re 6-0 in one-possession games in MAC play, and 11-3 overall in the MAC. Yes, more than half their wins have come by one score.
It’s possible this is a real ability of theirs. It’s more likely, though, that they’ve just been lucky. The sample size is so small that it’s hard to take anything meaningful from it, and given that measurements like their KenPom ranking have worsened throughout their unexpected run to the top of the MAC standings, it’s more worth our while to believe that Bowling Green is, in fact, lucky, taking the risk that if this is a close game, and Bowling Green is abnormally good at winning close games, and Bowling Green is not unexpectedly unlucky tonight, we lose the pick.
Akron’s the better team by a lot more than five points. Bowling Green’s home court advantage is not worth a full four points. Yes, Akron hasn’t always showed up this year, but who has, besides Kansas? Expect Akron to win, almost fully cementing themselves into a regular season conference championship.
Pick: Akron -1 (-110). Low confidence.
