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 0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,958 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. 0.7% doesn’t sound amazing, but relative to what else you get on the internet?
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. ESPN’s SP+ is heavily used in making college football picks of all kinds, and FPI is used in making conference championship futures picks.
Alabama @ Florida
Going by each team’s wins and losses (and the locations of all of them), you’d expect Alabama to be a favorite here, even on the road.
The Tide have beaten Gonzaga and Houston (possibly the second and third-best teams in the country), beaten Tennessee, and handled a slew of mediocre high-majors and good mid and low-majors, walloping Louisiana Tech, South Dakota State, and Miami and beating Drake rather comfortably after a second-half scare. Their win over the Zags was in Seattle. Their losses—to Iona, Memphis, and Davidson—aren’t great, but are all understandable. They’ve gained some notoriety.
Florida, on the other hand, has beaten possibly just one NCAA Tournament team, that being Ohio State. Their Florida State win isn’t all that impressive. They’ve lost three of their last six, and while losing at Oklahoma is fair, losing to Texas Southern and a reeling Maryland is not.
Still, Florida’s a favorite, and the reason why is the same reason the oddsmakers make so much money off these games: The Gators are pretty good. No, they’re not in that Auburn/Kentucky/LSU/Tennessee/Alabama realm of the SEC. But they’re closer to that realm than they are to bubble quality, where Mississippi State and Arkansas reside. Trust your bookie.
Pick: Florida -1.5 (-110). Low confidence.
