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 positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,025 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. That’s right. We’re profitable. So very narrowly.
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. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks.
Duke @ Virginia
The last meeting between these two—which Virginia memorably won—was close. That makes sense, to some extent. Yes, it’s surprising for Virginia to be close in a game in which they’d be roughly 12-point underdogs, but a 13-point deviation isn’t all that big in a normal game.
It’s tempting to put too much weight behind that meeting two and a half weeks ago. Even if you do, though, I’m not sure how you come out looking at this as anything but a Duke win. Virginia was unusually efficient inside the arc. That doesn’t figure to repeat itself tonight. Might it be close again? Of course. But Duke’s the better team, and by enough to cover.
Pick: Duke -5 (-109). Low confidence.
