Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 672 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 12% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is very good. It’s also good when compared to conventional annual investments, and instead of taking a year to bring that return, it’s taking between three hours and seven months. In short, Joe’s got a good track record.
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Three picks today, all in college basketball.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from KenPom, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Team Rankings, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Stetson vs. Iona
Iona is certainly the better team tonight. The odds, though, seem to not be making enough out of early results. Stetson’s coming off an ugly home loss to Ohio in which they allowed the Bobcats to score 1.07 points per possession—well more than the national average (something like .99), despite being a below-average offensive team (expected to score .96 per possession against an average defense). A lot of this was due to Ohio shooting 52% on three’s, but that’s as much an indictment of Iona’s defense as it is a plausible excuse. Against Stetson, which has shot fairly accurately from beyond the arc this year, it could be a major issue once again.
Stetson doesn’t have a lot going for them (besides the three-point shooting, they’re only above-average so far in offensive rebounding and not yielding free throw attempts), but they’ve performed about exactly as expected on the aggregate.
Iona might bounce back this evening and make their struggles so far appear insignificant. Our best estimate of how good they are, though, points to this being a nine-point game.
Pick: Stetson +12.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Utah State vs. LSU
KenPom rates Utah State as the 47th-best team in the country. This is up from 68th, entering their first game, despite Utah State having yet to receive a single minute from NBA prospect Neemias Queta, their shot-blocking, foul-drawing, rebound-grabbing, efficiently-scoring sophomore big man. Queta reportedly dislocated his kneecap this summer playing in the FIBA U-20 European Championship for his native Portugal, and while there was reportedly no meniscus or ligament damage, we’ve yet to see him on the court, and we’ve yet to hear an estimate on when he’ll return (though rumors circulate that the return will come soon).
Even without Queta, Utah State’s clearly been playing well. They’ve yet to face an opponent in KenPom’s top 200, but they’ve beaten inferior opponents so soundly that they’ve climbed the board anyway. Kuba Karwowski, a seven-foot-two-inch Pole starting in Queta’s place, has been blocking shots at a prodigious pace and keeping possessions alive on the offensive glass, helping negate some of the damage of Queta’s absence.
It’s possible Queta will play in tonight’s game in Jamaica. It’s also possible he won’t. I’d assume the likelihood is priced properly into the line, though what might not be priced properly is that some of Karwowski’s contributions overlap with those expected from Queta. In other words, Utah State might not be missing Queta as much as one would expect due to redundancy, even though Queta is, obviously, the superior player to Karwowski. This would shift the line ever-so-slightly in Utah State’s direction, but it’s probably not a noticeable impact, since the likelihood he plays appears small at this point.
LSU has not enjoyed as encouraging a start to the season, but to their credit, they’re right at 38th in KenPom, exactly where they entered their opening game. They, too, are missing a significant contributor, though theirs, Marlon Taylor, is not as significant as Queta. Taylor, a senior who started 24 games last season, is sidelined with a foot injury, and based on the limited information available, there’s a much smaller chance he plays tonight than the small chance Queta plays.
Overall, the line breaks down as follows:
We’re far enough into the season where KenPom has made significant adjustments based on how each team has actually played, instead of basing its rankings solely on how teams were initially expected to play. This means both of these teams are likely slightly undervalued on the whole by KenPom, since Taylor and Queta’s returns will make each better, and slightly overvalued tonight by KenPom in the event they’re without Taylor and Queta. Factoring in the possibility that Queta plays would even out that overvaluing for Utah State, except that some of Karwowski’s contributions would disappear in the event Queta returned. In the end, then, we’re right back with where we’d be if both teams were healthy: KenPom has the better team slightly favored, while the odds have the team ranked by the AP Poll as the favorite. The AP Poll might not be wrong—Utah State keeps climbing KenPom’s board, leaving open the possibility it hasn’t captured them yet. KenPom’s been doing its thing for a long time, though, and unlike the AP Poll, its only inputs are numbers based on historic trends. Utah State might be better. Queta might play. Either of those things would really mess this up. But overall, it’s more likely than not that KenPom’s right.
Pick: LSU to win (+105). Low confidence.
Wake Forest vs. Davidson
It’s possible Davidson’s being undervalued so far by KenPom, as their worst performance to date—a 13-point loss at Charlotte—came without Carter Collins, who’s played 20 or more minutes in all other contests. On the flip side, Davidson’s still without one of their most efficient shooters from last year, KiShawn Pritchett, and—*narrative alert*—Wake Forest is being described as a disaster of a program following a tough overtime loss, also at Charlotte (Charlotte is not particularly good, yet their victories have not been entirely stunning—such is life when a borderline NIT at-large team visits a Conference USA bottom-feeder).
Wake Forest’s basketball program isn’t in great shape. They opened the season by losing to Boston College, their primary competition for last place in the ACC. That game, though, was on the road, and while they’re certainly worse than Davidson, they likely aren’t eight points worse, even with the game happening just a half-hour drive from Davidson’s campus (it’s an hour and a half from Wake).
Pick: Wake Forest +8 (-110). Low confidence.
