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 0.2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,257 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 0.3% 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.
Same note we’ve been writing, before we get to the picks themselves: We may be pivoting soon into less frequent published bets, at least for a few months. The results aren’t where they’ve been, and we don’t have a great track record with conference games in college basketball. Since our average ROI is still positive, we’re going to keep going, and we may keep going even if it dips slightly negative, but once conference play heats up, it’s likely we’ll be shifting to trying to build a solid futures portfolio and get that average ROI some breathing room. Anyway, if the bets start disappearing for stretches, that’s why.
Drake @ South Dakota
These teams met before, the day after Thanksgiving, in a game in which Drake rolled. It’s possible that’s shaping this line. If it is, I’d be curious how much data on the indicative ability of previous matchups bettors are using to make that call, and what that data says. It’s possible it’s against me, but my guess is that the sample size is small enough for the prior result to not be wholly indicative here.
Pick: South Dakota +6.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Florida A&M @ Georgia Tech
As for this one, we might be seeing the too-spread-apart line because Georgia Tech’s won a few games now, including a still impressive thrashing of Kentucky. In that case, the hype might be overestimated—the Kentucky win was nice, but what else have the Yellow Jackets done? If it isn’t that, it’s possible it’s the absence of Jalen Speer for FAMU. Speer hasn’t played the last two games, and a quick search found nothing on his injury status for tonight.
Even if Speer doesn’t play, FAMU’s a solid play here, and frankly, Speer’s numbers in the three games he did play were pretty bad. Florida A&M’s coming off their first win of the year, and the ratings are the highest on them they’ve been so far. We don’t need them to pull off the upset, or to even make it close. We just need them to keep it within 20.
Pick: Florida A&M +21.5 (-110). Low confidence.
