Editor’s Note: For a little more than three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,284 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. That is, of course, unprofitable, and while our projections do indicate we’ll get back to even or profitable by the beginning of November (we have a strong history on MLB futures), we want to be transparent with you here.
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks.
More college basketball futures today, for which the odds come from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline due to the absence of a current/accurate Vegas consensus.
NCAA Tournament
Apologies for how hard this is to read. If you’re following our futures exactly, this is 20 units on the Gonzaga bet, 4 on Saint Peter’s, 20 on Duke, 10 on UCLA, 2 on Texas Tech, 10 on Houston, 4 on Villanova, 4 on Michigan, and 2 on Providence.
This is, obviously, another big investment. We’re in pretty deep here, and in 14% of our own simulations, we lose 150 units or more when this is said and done. At the same time, though, in 11% of our simulations, we win 200 units or more. Our median result is to win 3.06 units, and our profit probability is 53%. The upside does outweigh the downside for us, but as we knew could happen when we committed to trusting a model that was telling us to put dozens of bets on massive longshots, we are in very, very deep. We’d make each of these bets independently of our portfolio—there’s value with each one—and there are others we see as valuable, but our portfolio, in totality, is now massive, and we’ve still got fourteen days to go.
Our holes are Kansas, Arizona, Purdue, and to a large extent Gonzaga, even with this play on them to beat Arkansas. With everyone else, though, there are good things going on. Arkansas, UNC, and Saint Peter’s don’t give us extremely high value, but our UNC play is on them to win their region, and the other two would knock out much riskier holes with wins. If Texas Tech gets to the championship game, we’re in great shape. If Houston, Villanova, Iowa State, Providence, Miami, or Michigan gets to the championship game, we’re in great shape. If Duke wins their region, we get a good boost. If UCLA wins their region, we’re likely to be in a powerful position, needing just one of Arizona and Kansas to have been eliminated to be able to hedge our way into guaranteed profit.
That hedging piece is part of what makes us feel good about the 47%. It’s too early to find effective pure hedges, and you probably don’t want to at this stage (though a large Purdue/Kansas parlay on Friday might be in order if things go badly on Thursday), but as long as we can dodge individual terrible days, we should be able to cover a lot of our gaps, many of them simply through new opportunities becoming available, as we keep seeing.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Elite Eight -395. Medium confidence.
Pick: Saint Peter’s to make Elite Eight +675. Medium confidence.
Pick: Saint Peter’s to make Elite Eight +675. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +450. Medium confidence.
Pick: UCLA to make Final Four +220. Medium confidence.
Pick: UCLA to make Final Four +220. Medium confidence.
Pick: UCLA to make Final Four +220. Medium confidence.
Pick: UCLA to make Final Four +220. Medium confidence.
Pick: UCLA to make Final Four +220. Medium confidence.
Pick: Texas Tech to win +1200. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to be runner up +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to be runner up +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to be runner up +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to be runner up +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to be runner up +1000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to be runner up +1200. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to be runner up +1200. Medium confidence.
Pick: Michigan to be runner up +5000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Michigan to be runner up +5000. Medium confidence.
Pick: Providence to be runner up +6000. Medium confidence.
