Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 780 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 11% 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.
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.
South Alabama @ UT-Arlington
UT-Arlington’s had a rough start to conference play, dropping three of their first four Sun Belt games, all of which were on the road. To the Mavericks’ credit, though, each loss was to one of the league’s better teams, and they came by an average of just four points. UTA actually came out of the road trip in better standing in KenPom than when they entered, and while their 5-10 overall record is unsightly, the Division I portion of their nonconference schedule was among the hardest in the country, featuring trips to Oregon and Gonzaga to go with a neutral-court showdown with Furman.
In other words, the favorite tonight is better than appearances suggest. Against a South Alabama team that struggles mightily on defense, especially on the perimeter, don’t be surprised if something clicks.
Pick: UT-Arlington -6 (-110). Low confidence.
Pick: Over 138.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Alcorn State @ Texas Southern
Texas Southern graduated a lot of pieces from last year’s unit that beat Baylor and Oregon near the season’s beginning and nearly won the CIT at season’s end. Even with a new rotation, they’ve turned in some impressive performances, hanging with Wichita State and Oregon and taking care of business in the few instances when they’ve been favored.
Tonight is another one of those instances, and while the Tigers aren’t the SWAC favorite (that’d be Prairie View A&M), they’ll likely establish themselves definitively as a close second soon enough. Perhaps even tonight.
Pick: Texas Southern -8 (-110). Low confidence.
