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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,866 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,268 completed high and medium-confidence picks. The low confidence picks are the problem. Most of our picks are in the low confidence category.
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 from 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 kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks.
Active markets today: Only college basketball.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 88–68–1 and we’re down 5.19 units. We’re currently mostly betting moneyline favorites, so our win–loss record doesn’t line up with our net loss.
Marquette @ UConn
Marquette’s on a hot streak, but UConn’s is longer, and UConn’s has come against better competition. I’m not sure there’s anything all that complicated here. It would be a large upset if Marquette took down the Huskies, and that has us liking UConn to pull away down the stretch.
Pick: UConn –6.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Utah State @ Colorado State
This fits our formula: Home team is better, home team is coming off a loss, visiting team is coming off a win, and the spread’s a little wider than the kenpom line. We’d be happy if we hit this and split the other two.
Pick: Colorado State to win –245. Low confidence.
Kentucky @ Auburn
We’re expecting to see a lot of movement on this line today, and we think (though we certainly don’t know) that it’ll include some sort of rally towards Auburn. The only explanation for why it’s tightened so far would be something regarding Tre Mitchell’s shoulder, but there’s been no announcement as of the time of this writing, which makes us think it’s possible bettors are guessing or following a phantom swing, thereby making it real.
We’ve said before that we don’t think Auburn’s home/road split is necessarily real, but to be clear, we don’t think Auburn isn’t great at home. We think Auburn is a great team overall.
Pick: Auburn –8 (–115). Low confidence.
