Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –1% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,195 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,257 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly in experimental markets for us).
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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
We’ve got a college basketball play, we’ve got an NFL play, and we’ve got our daily college football futures mechanizing. Today, it takes the place of any game pick in Montana vs. Furman. Here’s the context on where we’re at in each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 20–14. We’re up 4.06 units and we’re up 12%.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 43 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Navy @ Quinnipiac
We’re sticking with the free throw thing. This is the perfect kind of play for it. Quinnipiac’s great on free throws and four points is right around the area where the median result involves free throws mattering.
Pick: Quinnipiac –4.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Furman @ Montana (Hedge)
We’re erring on the side of going small with this one, putting 12 units down on Montana’s moneyline, knowing we have Furman at 100-to-1 from a few weeks ago and knowing that would be very valuable should Furman pull off the upset tonight. 12 units at this price would only get us 1.5 units in return, but that would at least pay for the Furman future and push our worst cases up that little bit more.
Pick: Montana to win –800. Low confidence. x12
