Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,980 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,249 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
We’ve got a college basketball pick for tonight, and we’ve got more college football (no new futures there today, but it’s possible we’ll throw some in tomorrow). Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 17–11. We’re up 4.36 units and we’re up 16%.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 71–72–3. We’re down 6.86 units and down 5%.
Gonzaga vs. USC
Something we haven’t figured out with this free throw strategy (we’re betting for or against two or three-score favorites based on their free throw percentage, thinking it might sway the middle 20% of scenarios due to late-game fouling) is whether we should be looking at full teams or just guards. Gonzaga has a terrible free throw percentage, but it has some good free throw shooters. Would it be able to keep the ball in their hands?
For now, we’re going to stick with simplicity.
Pick: USC +3.5 (–113). Low confidence.
Texas vs. Oklahoma State
We trust Quinn Ewers to do what he needs to do to win. We don’t trust Texas to put up a lot of style points. Last week was unusual for them in that regard, and we’d imagine Oklahoma State knows its best bet here is to try to control the ball for 45 minutes and get Ollie Gordon 35 carries.
Pick: Oklahoma State +14.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Richmond @ Albany
I don’t know if this is a rest thing, an injury I don’t know about, or whether markets are just very low on the Spiders (this would explain some of last week’s line), but Richmond and Albany are about as good as one another on paper. Movelor has Richmond the better team by a couple points. In our lone FCS play (we have to prepare for Friday night, when I believe there’ll be FCS quarterfinals to bet on the eve of bowl season), give us Richmond to cover for the second straight week.
Pick: Richmond +7.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Michigan vs. Iowa
Iowa’s defense is great, and Michigan showed against Penn State that it doesn’t need to make things too complicated. Michigan’s going to run the ball, and it’s going to work, and they’re going to win comfortably, but it’s going to be hard to win this comfortably.
Pick: Iowa +21.5 (–108). Low confidence.
