Editor’s Note: For more than 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 the 2019-20 college basketball season). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback, the second two months of the 2019-20 college basketball season). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,301 published picks, not including pending futures. And while 1.0% 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. Ken Pomeroy’s KenPom is heavily used in making College Basketball picks.
Futures, as usual, come from Bovada, given the absence of a consistently current and accurate Vegas consensus. First, though:
Florida vs. Virginia Tech
I do not understand this line, and attempts to understand it have failed. Virginia Tech isn’t very good. Florida isn’t earthshaking, but they’re decent enough to be the favorite here. Maybe the ACC’s more highly valued as a whole in the market than in KenPom?
Pick: Florida +1.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Baylor vs. Hartford
Hartford slows it down, and Baylor’s often content to play a slower pace themselves.
Pick: Hartford +25.5 (-110). Low confidence.
North Carolina vs. Wisconsin
More on this below, but I trust KenPom, even if I’m skeptical of Wisconsin being that good, and Wisconsin should be able to hold its own on the defensive glass, which is the thing you need to do against UNC.
Pick: Wisconsin +1.5 (-110). Low confidence.
NCAA Tournament Futures
Three batches of these. The first is teams to make the Sweet Sixteen. We’ve got four of them, and we just need one to advance through the first weekend to profit on the four as a whole.
Wisconsin and Loyola are KenPom darlings, each around the top ten despite not having a ton of résumé to show for it. Each will deservedly be a sizable underdog Sunday should they even win today, and there’s skepticism around KenPom this year because of the smaller-than-usual quantity of cross-conference action, but that, alongside Baylor’s early dominance and Illinois’s late dominance, may be holding the Badgers and the Ramblers back further than is reasonable.
St. Bonaventure presents matchup problems for LSU and is a bit of an unknown quantity overall, playing in the A-10 and playing just 20 games so far. Again, we’re trusting KenPom with them (and their ability to generate second chances).
Abilene Christian is the longest of these longshots, but to sum them up quickly: In addition to the numbers looking favorable here, Abilene Christian is Texas Tech Lite, or Texas Tech with less talent. That’s a believable recipe.
Pick: Wisconsin to make Sweet Sixteen +500. Low confidence.
Pick: Loyola to make Sweet Sixteen +650. Low confidence.
Pick: St. Bonaventure to make Sweet Sixteen +700. Low confidence.
Pick: Abilene Christian to make Sweet Sixteen +2200. Low confidence.
Now, to make the Elite Eight.
Gonzaga is fairly properly valued, but the number does err on the side of taking them, and by taking them alongside USC (who I like because Evan Mobley is very good and Kansas is shorthanded), I can get the probability of losing units on this pair down below 20%.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -300. High confidence.
Pick: USC to make Elite Eight +600. Low confidence.
And then, the national championship.
Iowa gets discounted because it plays poor defense. Michigan gets discounted because it isn’t rolling its way in. Houston gets discounted because it’s Houston.
All three present some raw value. Michigan’s probably the third-best team in the country, if not the second. Houston is very possibly a top-five team, and doesn’t have the Loyola threat in the second round that Illinois has to deal with. And Iowa, though they’d have to go through Gonzaga, does have the player of the year or the runner up heading an electric offensive squad.
The likely outcome here is to lose all three. But the expected value is a little more than a 30% return on investment.
Pick: Michigan to win the national championship +1000. Low confidence.
Pick: Houston to win the national championship +1800. Low confidence.
Pick: Iowa to win the national championship +2200. Low confidence.
