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 0.4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,265 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. 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.
If you’ve noticed that these bets are growing more infrequent, there’s a reason for that. Our track record on conference games in college basketball isn’t very good. We’re working on some tweaks to the method to fix that, but those are probably a year out, so for the time being, we’re finding nonconference games where we can find them, and we’ll soon be pivoting into building a national championship futures portfolio. Anyway, if this is the last time we see you for a while, that’s why, and we’ll be back.
Portland @ Seattle
Last year, by KenPom’s measure, Aaron Nettles was the seventh-best player in the WAC, offensively. He shot 43% on threes in conference play (39% in nonconference), and while he only managed double figures four times (three of those were in nonconference games), there was reason to believe he’d be a key cog in this season’s Redhawk offense.
So far, it hasn’t worked out well. Nettles, who’s shot 6.8 threes per game (compared to 3.5 last year) is shooting just 24%. When he missed Seattle’s game at Cal before Christmas, the team turned in one of its best performances of the year, pushing the Golden Bears to the wire.
It’s unclear if Nettles will be back on the court tonight. If he isn’t, it’s hard to say he’s really helping Seattle (those expectations still carry some weight in projections, and he does other things besides shoot threes). If he does return, it’s again hard to say he’s really helping Seattle. The long and short of it is that this line should be closer to its true norm, which would, per KenPom, have Seattle as a 1.5 or 2-point favorite.
Go Pilots.
Pick: Portland +4.5 (-110). Low confidence.
