Editor’s Note: For a little more than three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -0.5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,371 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. We did enter today, however, with a large future on Washington State to win the NIT and smaller futures on Villanova to, well, effectively just beat Kansas, so there’s around a 30% chance we’ll be profitable again once Friday morning rolls around. Make of all of that what you will.
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. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline, as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks.
Just a hedge for our futures portfolio.
NIT
We aren’t going to copy and past the pick 110 times, but we’re placing 220 units on Texas A&M to beat Washington State. We have a lot of flexibility to work with, and while this does leave us a little exposed to a scenario in which Xavier beats Washington State in the NIT Championship and Kansas beats Villanova on Saturday, we should be able to further hedge out of that if the need arises. This doesn’t lock us into profitability all-time—we would still strongly prefer Washington State to win—but it leaves us with huge upside while lessening our downside. Go Cougs.
Pick: Texas A&M to make Championship Game -145. Medium confidence. (x110)
