Well, we’re back in the red. Notre Dame nearly came back for the cover last night, but no dice. Thankfully, we snuck in two little college basketball wins, though the units on those were small.
We’re back on college basketball tonight, but our units are staying small on that front for the foreseeable future. We just do not have the track record we want.
Wisconsin @ UCLA
In two of Mick Cronin’s five seasons in Los Angeles, UCLA was really good. In one, UCLA was decent, hit a rough patch, then rattled off an impressive tournament run. In the other two, UCLA was pretty bad, but they went on a tear in conference play to at least temporarily salvage their dignity.
There is plenty of precedent for people saying the sky is falling for Mick Cronin’s UCLA.
This is relevant because last week became “Mick Cronin has a problem” week, and then on Friday night, UCLA smoked Iowa. Wisconsin’s a lot better than Iowa, but it wouldn’t be unprecedented for UCLA to rally under Cronin following a depressing stretch. That’s probably what the market’s seeing that’s pushing this line three points past where kenpom has it. We’re with the market.
The under? That’s a dumb thing we talked about yesterday. We think that when people like the favorite, they underrate the under. That, or there’s a slight correlation there and we’ve got an implicit hedge. Again, this is dumb of us, but we lack confidence in our college basketball bets to such a degree that we’re comfortable mixing in one coin flip a day, at least for the time being.
Pick: UCLA –4 (–105). 10.00 units to win 9.52.
Pick: Under 142.5 (–115). 10.00 units to win 8.70.
**
I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –20.96 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –2% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 27 single-game markets)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.