Today’s Best Bets: Big West Basketball

Miami came through for us last night, by which I mean Miami was not competitive at all against Stanford. Looking forward to Miami/Cal this weekend.

In the meantime, staying in the Golden State:

UC Irvine @ UC Riverside

I think there’s a little expectation here that UC Riverside will end UC Irvine’s unbeaten Big West run. This is the kind of thing you see a lot in college basketball: A good team goes to a capable conference opponent’s court and walks away with a loss.

Sometimes, though, the instinct for this can get overblown. UCR still hasn’t quite broken through in the Big West. UCI’s defense is nasty, sitting in the top ten right now in kenpom. We’re getting an extra point beyond the kenpom spread and five points beyond the kenpom total. We’ll take both.

Pick: UC Irvine –7 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
Pick: Under 143 (–125). 10.00 units to win 8.00.

**

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: –23.56 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)

2025: –2% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 29 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.

The Barking Crow's resident numbers man. NIT Bracketology, college football forecasting, and things of that nature. Fields inquiries on Twitter: @joestunardi.
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