Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 708 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.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose following Joe’s picks. At the same time, though, you’re also responsible for any money you win.
Similarly, if you have a gambling problem, or even think you might have a gambling problem, get help. If you need help getting help, reach out to us via the contact information available on our about page.
Three picks today.
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.
Columbia @ Delaware
Delaware has yet to lose, and while they’ve yet to play a team in the top half of KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margins rankings, winning eight games to start the year is impressive against virtually any schedule.
The question with the Blue Hens’ lines all year has been whether or not the odds have caught up to their play on the court. As it stands, Delaware’s climbed from 256th (out of 353 Division I teams) in KenPom all the way up to 163rd. They’ve climbed between each of their games, implying they’ve outperformed expectations in all of them. Is tonight the night that stops?
It might be. It might not be. We really don’t know. The narrative of “the odds are struggling to catch up to ______” does carry some weight now and then, but it carries more with teams at the outer ends of the spectrum: in college football, it’s been valid to hold off on taking Akron to cover any spread because Akron was so bad this year they stretched the limits of reliable models. That isn’t the case here. Delaware’s in the center of the D-I men’s basketball bell curve, very much a group whose performance can be reliably quantified. Yes, preseason expectations may still be holding them back a bit in the eyes of systems like KenPom. It’s possible they should be, though.
There’s doubt enough to go around in this one. Columbia’s still missing Gabe Stefanini, and Maka Ellis has missed three games over two stretches this year without much explanation as to why. Columbia’s been without Stefanini long enough to be adequately evaluated as they are, though, and Ellis, for his part, played on Saturday. There are a lot of unknowns here. They’re being treated as leaning towards Delaware in the odds. The numbers suggest skepticism of that narrative.
Pick: Columbia +6.5 (-110). Low confidence.
High Point @ North Florida
High Point is not very good. They have yet to beat a Division I team, and while their schedule’s been full of respectable opponents, that’s mostly relative to themselves. They don’t stand much of a chance to win tonight in Jacksonville against a North Florida team coming home from a frustrating loss Friday night in Las Vegas.
It’s that loss by North Florida, and a seeming lack of adjustment by the spread, that puts this line in play. In the loss, North Florida allowed Tennessee State—a team rated to have the 281st-best offense in Division I basketball—to score 1.09 points per possession, nearly 0.15 more than what TSU would be expected to post against an average defense. It may have been just one result, but it was indicative of a larger trend for UNF: The Ospreys allow a lot of easy looks. High Point has one of the three worst two-point shooting percentages in Division I, but even they should get opportunities to score tonight. Again, UNF should easily win. High Point’s still more likely than not to cover.
Pick: High Point +15.5 (-110). Low confidence.
St. Bonaventure @ Florida Atlantic
With Osun Osunniyi back, St. Bonaventure is obviously a better team than they were in his absence, and his double-double last night, with six blocks to boot, was a prime example of how impactful a player he is.
Still, his return doesn’t shift the Bonnies as far as this line implies. They are, indeed, probably two to four points better than FAU. On FAU’s home court, though, that advantage evaporates. This game is a tossup. Treat it as such.
Pick: Florida Atlantic +4 (-110). Low confidence.
