We got a smooth win on the Nebraska/Maryland over last night, and it looked at points like we’d do the same with the Gonzaga/San Francisco under. It was not to be. We return to the drawing board.
We’re only doing tonight’s bets today. We’re returning to publishing Saturday’s and Sunday’s on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t know if this will be a permanent switch back or not.
Saint Louis @ Loyola
SLU’s defense is exceeding preseason expectations, especially since conference play began. Don’t count on that to last. The Billikens’ conference opponents are shooting 27.4% from three-point range. Three-point defense is notoriously not predictive of future results.
Combine that with a SLU offense which has underachieved (read: potential for upside), and we like the over tonight. Loyola’s all over the place offensively, but their biggest weakness is turnovers, and that’s not something SLU’s defense takes advantage of.
Pick: Over 140.5 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
UCLA @ Indiana
A lot’s been made this week about Mick Cronin’s UCLA record in the Central and Eastern Time Zones. This season, the Bruins are 0–5 when playing east of El Paso. Last year, they went 0–1 in such games.
That’s a very small sample, and to some extent it correlates with times when UCLA was playing badly overall. Their ET/CT losses this year came against UNC (by 2), Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, and Illinois (by 5). Those three in the middle were part of the four-game losing streak which led to multiple Cronin press conference rants (one about his team; one about the Big Ten schedule) and a Cronin ejection. On Tuesday, UCLA played well but lost to a better team on that team’s home floor. Long story short, I think “UCLA had a bad first half of January” is more accurate than “UCLA struggles when they have to travel.”
Could I be wrong? Of course. Could Indiana play well enough to make this question irrelevant? Yes. I’m not trying to predict Indiana here. I’ve tried enough psychology on them and Miami in recent weeks. The average UCLA performance would cover against an average Indiana performance tonight. That’s going to be enough for us to take this.
Pick: UCLA –1.5 (–112). 10.00 units to win 8.93.
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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: –132.69 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –8% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 72 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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