Editor’s Note: For a little more than three years now, 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 -5% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,306 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. If you include pending futures and value them at their expected value (probability of success multiplied by payout), the average return on investment is 2% over 2,528 published picks. Make of all of that what you will. What we’re making of it is that we have a solid chance of ending the NCAA Tournament and NIT profitable all-time, but that it isn’t a sure thing. If we don’t enter MLB season positive, we’ll probably hold off on daily baseball bets and build a massive futures portfolio there, since MLB futures is where our history’s the best.
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. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline, as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks.
No futures again today, but we’ll discuss our interests at the bottom. Houston winning last night was helpful, and we could close the door even further tonight.
Purdue vs. Saint Peter’s
We’ll have another post on this later today, but Purdue hasn’t faced many defenses as good as that of Saint Peter’s this year. The Peacocks rank 29th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, better than all but Indiana and Illinois in the Big Ten and better than all but Villanova and Texas among Purdue’s non-Big Ten opponents thus far. Now. Purdue does boast the best offense in the country, by those same measures. They also have an obscene height advantage over the Peacocks, with Trevion Williams and Zach Edey three and nine inches taller than Saint Peter’s primary bigs, respectively. But a post offense is not a fast offense, Purdue’s had trouble protecting the ball this season, and Saint Peter’s does have the guys to potentially frustrate Jaden Ivey (as much as anyone can) and cause issues for the Boilermakers’ shooters. They can keep this close. ish.
Pick: Saint Peter’s +13 (-111). Medium confidence.
Kansas vs. Providence
This is, barring Purdue/Saint Peter’s, the most lopsided matchup of the whole Sweet Sixteen. Well, Gonzaga/Arkansas was that, actually, and we saw how that ended.
Providence hasn’t seen an offense like that of Kansas. Villanova’s the closest thing, and the Wildcats scored at will over the Friars in both matchups this season—each rather recently, too. The Jayhawks have enough defensive lapses that we’re staying away from the spread, but expect KU to control the tempo and put up a lot of points in the United Center.
Pick: Over 141.5 (-110). Medium confidence.
UCLA vs. North Carolina
If you want a good reason to not bet on a Pac-12 team dealing with an ankle injury, go look at Kerr Kriisa’s stat line from the last few games. For us, we aren’t sure if Jaquez not being 100% will be enough to make UCLA lose. It will have an impact, yes, and it seems likely to hamper UCLA’s offensive efficiency, but you could do worse than having to lean more heavily on Jaylen Clark. Overall, UCLA is capable of scoring from a lot of angles in its half-court offense, and Mick Cronin’s ability to make in-game adjustments is Rick Pitino-esque, which should give the Bruins an advantage over Hubert Davis, whose team just nearly blew the largest second-half lead in NCAA Tournament history (actually, they did blow it—they just got it back in the end).
UNC’s a good team, playing its best right now. They’re still the same team Virginia Tech worked two weeks ago tonight, though.
Pick: UCLA -2.5 (-111). Medium confidence.
Miami vs. Iowa State
Iowa State is not as pretty of a team as Miami. Iowa State does not have a viable offense for long stretches of basketball at times—sometimes entire games. Iowa State thrives on chaos. Iowa State is guerrilla warfare on a basketball court.
Iowa State’s also the better team tonight.
It’s narrow, but ISU’s better, and for as good as Miami is at protecting the ball…Wisconsin was even better entering Sunday. Better still for the Cyclones, Miami’s offense comes much more through its guards than even Wisconsin’s did. Am I a biased homer? Yes. But KenPom isn’t, and it doesn’t take a homer to recognize stylistic disrespect. Go Cyclones.
Pick: Iowa State +3 (-110). Medium confidence.
***
For the most part, our futures interests tonight mirror our daily interests, because, well, that’s where the value’s been lying this whole dang tournament. Here’s how things shake out for us with each of the 16 possible combinations of winners tonight (note – for the improbable outcomes, we’re getting our numbers from a tiny sample of simulations, so the margin of error is enormous):
probability is how many times these winners won in our 10,000 simulations; mean and median are profit or loss in terms of units
| Winners | Profit Probability | Probability | Mean | Median |
| ISPU | 93% | 1.2% | 192.5 | 181 |
| MSPU | 81% | 1.2% | 138.9 | 149 |
| MSKU | 79% | 3.5% | 103.3 | 91 |
| ISKU | 76% | 3.8% | 122.0 | 91 |
| IPPU | 74% | 7.2% | 108.5 | 118 |
| ISPN | 74% | 0.6% | 89.9 | 82 |
| MPPU | 66% | 7.0% | 70.2 | 85 |
| IPKU | 64% | 22.1% | 51.9 | 60 |
| MPKU | 60% | 20.5% | 30.7 | 60 |
| IPPN | 56% | 3.7% | 30.9 | 19 |
| MPPN | 51% | 3.7% | 11.6 | 19 |
| ISKN | 51% | 1.6% | 29.0 | 9.5 |
| MSPN | 50% | 0.6% | 29.4 | 1.5 |
| IPKN | 38% | 11.1% | -16.4 | -39 |
| MSKN | 38% | 2.0% | 4.3 | -8 |
| MPKN | 32% | 10.3% | -34.2 | -39 |
Overall, UCLA beating UNC is the most important thing for us, followed by Providence beating Kansas. Saint Peter’s somehow beating Purdue would help a lot, and Iowa State would be a preferable winner to Miami, since we have a make-the-Final-Four future on the Cyclones in addition the high-value tournament-runner-up future we have on each. The scenarios where Kansas and UNC both win—roughly 25% likely, but these simulations don’t account for Jaquez’s ankle—are our vulnerability, but there’s a tiny sliver in there where if Iowa State and Saint Peter’s both also win, we might be ok thanks to that make-the-Final-Four future on ISU and a parallel one on UNC. Big UCLA guys tonight, though, overall. Big Mick Cronin guys tonight.
