Two more really close ones last night. Congratulations to the market. It’s a thin slate today, and we don’t like much on it, but one game’s intriguing. So, we’re going to pick both the spread and the total in tonight’s MACtion.
Kent State at Akron
The story here is that six games ago, Kent State started playing a different kind of basketball. It helped. If you limit Bart Torvik’s algorithm to Kent State’s first 20 games (with no preseason ratings), Kent State grades out as the 129th-best team in the country, with the 301st-best offense and 36th-best defense, playing with an adjusted tempo of 66.1 possessions per game. If you limit to the last six games, Ken State’s the 88th-best team in the country, with the 20th-best offense and 277th-best defense, playing with an adjusted tempo of 67.1 possessions per game.
Generally, if attempting to evaluate Kent State, you’d weight the last six games a little more heavily on a per-game basis while weighting the previous twenty more heavily overall. Doing that (and eliminating preseason ratings again), Torvik spits out Kent State as the 111th-best team, with the 204th-best offense and 71st-best defense at an adjusted tempo of 66.3 possessions per game. Generally, that’s what you’d expect. It’s a weighted average of Kent State’s performance all year. The recency is odd, but you bake it in. With the spread, this is what markets appear to be doing, keeping the number equal to kenpom’s prediction. With the total, markets are all in on the Golden Flashes new identity. Kenpom has this at 150 points. Markets have it at 156.5.
Are markets right? And how right are they?
The shift is so dramatic and coincides so directly with a Kent State personnel shift (Anthony Morales hasn’t played in the last six games, possibly due to injury) that the recent results do disproportionately matter. Kent State became a different team beginning on February 8th. It’s weird that this happened—Morales shouldn’t have been this impactful—but it happened. The question is whether we should believe Kent State got better, or if we should think Kent State just changed their approach in a way that unlocked their offense at the expense of defensive heft.
Personally, I buy the latter explanation. Kent State started playing smaller when Morales left the lineup. Kent State started giving more shots to its scorers. Kent State definitely improved, but it was more a change in identity than a monumental improvement. Morales’s role just wasn’t that big.
The numbers bear this out. Kent State’s kenpom rating is up 1.38 points since the morning of February 8th. 65 separate teams have seen a larger improvement over that span. Kent State’s playing well, but not so well that we should have concerns about kenpom keeping up with the overall quality.
Summing it up: We think Kent State’s legitimately playing faster, better offensive, weaker defensive basketball. We don’t think the overall product’s different enough to make kenpom wrong. We’re taking this over, even at the big number, because we think Kent State’s offense is going to make some plays and Kent State’s defense isn’t going to stop Akron from running. We’re taking Akron, even at a number no different from kenpom’s, because we think Kent State’s defense isn’t going to stop Akron from running.
Pick: Akron –4 (–105). 10.00 units to win 9.52.
Pick: Over 156.5 (–108). 10.00 units to win 9.26.
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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –92.03 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –5% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 106 single-game markets)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
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