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 –1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,282 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly 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.
Active markets today: College basketball; NFL; college football futures. Here’s the context on each.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 23–27. We’re down 5.53 units, and we’re 3–14 over the last 17 days. We did win our last two, though. Make of that what you will.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 18–27–8, and we’re down 10.85 units. Again, we are riding a winning streak here. The winning streak here, though, is only one pick long.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 22 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets unless we explicitly mark them as a hedge. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Old Dominion vs. UMass
We have no idea what to pick with these Hawaii games today, but they’re the only option, and that’s kind of how we do this. Our reasoning here is that the average over/under across the four games is a little higher than the kenpom total, but this one and the other early game are a little under the kenpom number. Sometimes, we see this with games scheduled earlier in the day, but we think that thought process is a little overdone, especially when the game’s in Hawaii and it’s an afternoon game for players’ body clocks.
Pick: Over 155 (–110). Low confidence.
New England @ Denver
The Patriots don’t get blown out that often. They aren’t good, but they do tend to keep games close. The Broncos have a wide confidence interval—they’re a little all over the place—but we like New England to stick around in this one.
Pick: New England +7.5 (–120). Low confidence.
CFP Semifinals
We still don’t love Alabama in these semifinals, but we do think the proposition that the Alabama/Michigan game is 50/50 is believable. We like Texas a lot at this value. Putting six units on Bama and three on the Longhorns keeps our Michigan/Texas/Montana/Michigan scenario profitable while continuing to shore up edges.
Pick: Alabama to win +105. Low confidence. x6
Pick: Texas to win –172. Low confidence. x3
