Today’s Best Bets: Saturday, March 26th

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 mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of -4% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 2,312 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. If you include pending futures and value them at their expected value (probability of success multiplied by payout), the average return on investment is 0.5% over 2,547 published picks. Make of all of that what you will. What we’re making of it is that we have a solid chance of ending the NCAA Tournament and NIT profitable, but that it isn’t a sure thing. If we don’t enter MLB season positive, we’ll probably hold off on daily baseball bets and build a massive futures portfolio there, since MLB futures is where our history’s the best.

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. For futures bets and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline, as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks.

Futures at the bottom, along with our situation for tonight. The UCLA loss wasn’t crushing, but…I, for one, felt crushed. Big swing on that. They had it, too. Nice that Saint Peter’s won, though. That raised our floor, and we had not a single bet on Purdue.

Villanova vs. Houston, Duke vs. Arkansas

Two bets here, and one’s a parlay. Basically, there’s a little value on the Duke moneyline and a hint of value on the Villanova spread, so we’re going to roll them together on a low-unit bet, giving us a decent amount down on Duke to win and a very small amount on Villanova to cover. Roughly a 32% chance of a great night, a 32% chance of breaking roughly even, and a 36% chance of losing, but not losing as much as we’ve lost on recent daily bets (which is not exactly a good thing, but…here we are).

Pick: Duke to win -189. Medium confidence.
Pick: Parlay – Villanova +2.5, Duke to win (+194). Low confidence.

And now, the futures:

NCAA Tournament

There’s a little value to be had on Kansas, and while our portfolio isn’t in a spot where it makes sense to pound that, you’d be forgiven for making that your basket, were you looking to put all your eggs in one spot. Miami was impressive last night, but Kansas is a lot, lot better.

Houston and Villanova are each valuable. Houston’s the best team remaining in the tournament, and while their path remains difficult (Villanova’s the fourth-best team left, Kansas is the second-best), they’re still the favorite. Of course, if Villanova beats them tonight (certainly possible), Villanova will inherit what’s likely to be a tough Final Four matchup, but at 7-to-1? They’re good value there, and a thing about Villanova is that you can arguably trust them to not make a backbreaking mistake more than you can trust any other team in this field. Duke’s young. Kansas has some trouble protecting the ball. Houston’s physicality can bite them in the college game. Villanova protects the ball, makes free throws, plays moderate defense, and is coached by a guy who’s succeeded in this scenario often before. Those things can be overblown, but they definitely don’t hurt.

Pick: Kansas to make Final Four -260. Medium confidence.
Pick: Kansas to make Final Four -260. Medium confidence.
Pick: Kansas to make Final Four -260. Medium confidence.
Pick: Kansas to make Final Four -260. Medium confidence.
Pick: Kansas to make Final Four -260. Medium confidence.

Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +350. Medium confidence.

Pick: Villanova to win +700. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to win +700. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to win +700. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to win +700. Medium confidence.
Pick: Villanova to win +700. Medium confidence.

For the futures portfolio, here’s where things shake out for us on each of the four combinations tonight. We enter the evening with a 52% profit probability, so we’re in on Duke to win here as well. Mean and median are profit/loss in terms of units, probability is how often it happened in our 10,000 simulations this morning.