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 1,264 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 the last few days, 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.
South Carolina Upstate @ Tennessee
There are teams against whom Tennessee should be a 34-point favorite.
It’s hard to see how USC Upstate is one of them.
The Vols are good (top ten good) and the Spartans are bad (Big South bottom-tier bad), but the Spartans aren’t that bad, and Tennessee’s somewhat down-tempo style should keep this from getting too egregiously out of hand. Tennessee should have no trouble scoring, and should have no trouble shutting down the Upstate offense, but count on the Spartans to make enough threes to keep this around or below the 30-point mark.
Pick: South Carolina Upstate +34 (-110). Low confidence.
