Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 846 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 8% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. More broadly, it’s adequate 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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Two 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, 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.
UT-Rio Grande Valley @ Chicago State
Chicago State is a tough one for statistical models. They’re so bad that they stretch the limits of normal distributions, and it’s a near-universal woefulness that appears when looking at every aspect of their game. Their adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies are each rated by KenPom as among the four worst in Division I. They turn the ball over more than all but one team. They allow the third-highest effective field goal percentage and the second-highest three-point percentage. They even get torched from the free throw line, which might be bad luck, might be the absence of any sort of pressure on their opponents in terms of game leverage, or might be a sign they’re fouling guards more often than other teams do. The only things Chicago State does well are get to the free throw line and avoid blocked shots, two things that could be correlated and could be a result of sympathy from referees (this is pure speculation on my part, from looking at numbers and numbers alone). Chicago State is a bad situation, and it’s hard for models to know exactly how bad.
Going off of that, it’s hard to see Chicago State scoring 63 again, as they did the last time these two played, or 67, as KenPom’s efficiencies and tempo numbers would indicate they’ll score today. When they scored 63 back in the middle of January, it was in a high-tempo game by WAC standards (73 possessions), and it required over 50% shooting from the floor. The Vaqueros did force Chicago State into 23 turnovers, a performance likely to be repeated this afternoon, so the points per possession weren’t high, but turnovers aren’t the only thing holding back this offense. Scoring is also immensely difficult, and it’s possible models aren’t capturing how hard it is for this team. This under is dropping fast, and it’s possible sharps have accounted for all this already, but it’s worth a shot.
Pick: Under 139.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Northwestern State @ Houston Baptist
Houston Baptist is also a difficult team for models to evaluate, but not because they’re terrible. They just play such a different basketball from the rest of the country that numerical depictions of them struggle to capture the full story. Here are some things we do know, though:
- The HBU defense has had success the last two games: On Wednesday, HBU held Southeastern Louisiana to one point per possession (ppp). Last Saturday, they held Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to 0.96 ppp. These are the only two games all season in which they’ve held teams at or below one ppp, so it’s more likely it’s a blip than a trend, but in a sample as small as a college basketball season, each blip does shape the trend line.
- HBU gets to the free throw line: It’s unclear, from the numbers, how much this impacts the tempo, but Houston Baptist gets to the free throw line at a high rate compared to the rest of the country. They get 21.5% of their points from the foul line, the 56th-highest portion in Division I.
- HBU can make threes: A 37.4% clip on three-point shots is good no matter what league a team plays in. Don’t put too much stock in the tough non-conference schedule (HBU had buy games against Dayton, Houston, Texas Tech, Michigan, and Tulsa, plus a few others) when looking at this—it’s possible the number’s inflated by the massive amount of garbage time in those games—but do put stock in the 38.2% number they’re posting in league play. They don’t shoot many, but when they do, they knock them down.
- HBU grabs offensive boards: They’re among the best in the Southland at this.
The quick scan of HBU, then, is this: They play an unusual brand of basketball. They’re legitimately good at a few aspects of the offensive game. Their defense is so bad it’s hard to evaluate, but it’s played well the last two times out.
You should never “trust” a team like HBU, if you can trust any team in college basketball. But a team coming off two strikingly good performances, playing at home against an opponent whose defense underperforms in the exact areas the HBU offense excels, isn’t a bad play as a one-point favorite.
Pick: Houston Baptist -1 (-110). Low confidence.
