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 -1.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,366 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,602 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 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 (in both sports and politics) 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. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer futures picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL futures picks.
College football first, then the college basketball plays:
NC State @ Louisville
NC State is a curious little beast right now. Let’s work backwards through their recent results:
- Lost to Boston College: BAD.
- Beat Wake Forest: Good.
- Escaped Virginia Tech: Bad.
- Lost to Syracuse: Whatever.
- Beat Florida State (on October 8th): Good.
- Lost to Clemson: Whatever.
On the Louisville side, we’ve got the following:
- Lost to Clemson: Whatever.
- Beat James Madison (by kind of a lot): Good.
- Beat Wake Forest (by a lot): GOOD.
- Beat Pitt: Good.
- Beat Virginia: Whatever.
- Lost to Boston College: What the hell why is everyone losing to Boston College.
Louisville also lost to FSU, back in September, but the overall idea here is that Louisville’s displayed a little more consistency than the Wolfpack, and with just about every rating system favoring the Cardinals here, we think it’s enough to justify taking them even with Malik Cunningham sidelined. It’s a tough board today, but we’ll ride with the Cards. For better or worse.
Pick: Louisville -3 (-110). Low confidence.
Iowa @ Minnesota
Another meme over, and with the weather not *that* bad in Minneapolis, we’ll try our luck. We haven’t hit all of these, but we’re in the black on them.
Pick: Over 31.5 (-110). Low confidence.
The Citadel @ Butler
We don’t want to be this low on Butler, but the market is so high, and in this case, some of this is just respecting The Citadel, a bad-but-not-that-bad low-major. The Bulldogs aren’t expected to tear up the SoCon this year (or even finish in its top half), but twenty points is so many.
Pick: The Citadel +18.5 (-106). Low confidence.
Bryant @ FIU
Bryant is one of the fastest-tempo teams in the country. FIU is one of the fastest-tempo offenses in the country. But they still have to put the ball in the basket, and neither is very good at doing that. Each is a high-turnover team on both ends of the court, and Bryant hasn’t been shooting particularly well thus far. It’ll be a fast, sloppy game, not unlikely to reach the 160’s, but unlikely to reach 170.
Pick: Under 169.5 (-106). Low confidence.
