Losing on an over in a game which went to overtime? A special indignity. Our apologies to those who tailed us yesterday for Wisconsin’s game against Oregon.
We went looking for overs again today, not knowing whether we’d find ones we liked or not. We’re also in on another NASCAR race. Atlanta’s a superspeedway these days, after all.
UConn at St. John’s
The last time these teams played, they only combined for 130 points. The game went 69 possessions, though, and that’s probably more indicative of the nature of game it was. Kenpom only has this game at 67 possessions, and it nonetheless has the total at 142.
This isn’t always noticed, because St. John’s is so strong defensively, but the Johnnies play fast on the offensive side of the ball. They’re one of the fastest offenses in the nation. UConn will try to slow them down, but St. John’s is the better team and stands a good chance of controlling the pace. Give us the points.
Pick: Over 140 (–116). 10.00 units to win 8.62.
Utah at UCF
This perfectly matches the kenpom number, but it still seems low. The short story here is that if it matched kenpom’s 73-possession projection, it’d be Utah’s second-fastest game of the conference season. For UCF, though, it’d be fairly normal. UCF averages more possessions than that in conference play. With Utah the median tempo offense in the Big 12, excluding UCF, we’re comfortable with it getting to 73 possessions. From there, our recent over luck has us happy to take the shot. We think teams are scoring more points than their projections right now when we can’t find a reason why they won’t. We might be wrong, but that’s the theory.
Pick: Over 160 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta
It’s NASCAR, so our track record is awful and we’re only betting one unit. It’s a superspeedway, so randomness is king.
The way we approached this is a lot like how we found Corey LaJoie last week: We worked backwards from the biggest longshot until we found someone we thought could believably win.
Shane van Gisbergen is one of the best drivers in the world. It’s possible he’s the best driver in the world. I’d consider him for that title before I considered Max Verstappen. After a dominant career in Australian Supercars, van Gisbergen crossed the Pacific and transitioned to NASCAR without a hitch. He won his debut, racing at the Cup Series level. He’s won nearly ten percent of his Xfinity Series races. These wins have exclusively come on road courses, where he has an experience advantage (stock car racing on road courses is basically the definition of Supercars), but he had five top tens last year on ovals racing the Xfinity Series. He’s not uncompetitive. One of those top tens came at Atlanta. He finished third in that race.
Van Gisbergen also drives for Trackhouse, where his teammate Daniel Suárez won this race last season. Should van Gisbergen see shorter odds than 38-to-1? (There are 39 cars in this race.) No. But I also don’t think he’s 70% less likely than the average driver to win this race today. I think this is big value, and for one tiny unit, we’ll happily chase that.
For those looking for something less outrageous, van Gisbergen differs from LaJoie in that van Gisbergen’s running a full season’s worth of races. This makes the standings matter for van Gisbergen. LaJoie top ten bets don’t make a ton of sense, because LaJoie’s incentive is by and large to race for the win. Van Gisbergen can race for the top ten. I’m seeing him at +350 to do that, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Pick: Shane van Gisbergen to win (125-to-1). 1.00 unit to win 125.00.
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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: –66.53 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –4% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 95 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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