Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 806 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 9% 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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Two picks for 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.
Charlotte @ Old Dominion
It’s going to be slow.
It’s going to be ugly.
It will probably be close.
This was the story nine days ago when these teams met in Charlotte, combining for just 1.61 points per possession—0.806 each (for context, the worst offense in the country—that of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, has an adjusted offensive efficiency of 0.824 points per possession). It wasn’t an unusual game for either team, both of whom play slow, defensively-adept, offensively-impotent basketball, but it’s still striking to see a 53-47 final score.
Charlotte is likely the better team between the two. The 49ers entered the year to low expectations, and while neither Davidson nor Wake Forest is particularly enjoying this campaign, Charlotte’s victories over both in the season’s first two weeks were early indicators that those expectations were wrong. Despite an inexperienced lineup and little offensive heft, Ron Sanchez’s team has raced out to a 4-1 start to conference play, giving themselves an opportunity to tie North Texas and Western Kentucky for the league lead with an upset today in Norfolk.
It’s not likely Charlotte will, in fact, pull off the upset, but little the team’s done on the season has been described as likely beforehand. What is likely, or at least more likely than not, is a cover from the up-and-comers.
Pick: Charlotte +4.5 (-110). Low confidence.
High Point @ USC Upstate
It has not been a fun second season for Tubby Smith at High Point. The former Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Texas Tech, and Memphis coach has one of the worst teams in all of Division I basketball, and probably the worst team in an underwhelming Big South. It’s also one of the youngest teams, though, and it’s playing a deep rotation, two things that theoretically give hope for a bounce back to at least relevance within the conference next year.
For the time at hand, the more pressing concern is grabbing enough Big South victories to not occupy an embarrassing space in the standings. The Panthers got one Thursday up in Asheville against one of the league’s better teams. It’s possible they’ll do the same this evening, but it doesn’t look good. South Carolina Upstate, while no power, is five or six points better than their guests before factoring in home-court advantage, and they’ve won six of their last ten, with five of those coming against opponents better than Tubby & Co.
Pick: USC Upstate -6.5 (-110). Low confidence.
