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 6,869 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 90–69–1 and we’re down 4.87 units. We’re currently mostly betting moneyline favorites, so our win–loss record doesn’t line up with our net loss.
One more note: We’re going in reverse order on these chronologically. The second game listed happens first.
Seton Hall @ St. John’s
This almost perfectly fits our parameters, and our hope is that the one category in which it doesn’t fit—St. John’s is favored by six both in the markets and on kenpom, and we’d feel more comfortable if the markets were leading kenpom—could also be happening due to a phenomenon we like: the overweighting of recent results, where St. John’s road losses and home losses to UConn and Marquette (all excusable) have people sleeping on the Red Storm. We think they’re about to win three straight. Seton Hall is scrappy as hell but eventually, their results are going to return to their level of ability, and we trust Rick Pitino to figure out how to stop Kadary Richmond (again—Richmond only scored 12 on 14 FGA when these two played in Newark).
Pick: St. John’s to win –255. Low confidence.
Memphis @ SMU
This one is tougher. We have three picks we could like—UCLA to cover, Minnesota on the moneyline, and this one. Each has an issue.
With Minnesota, the issue is that Rutgers has done this late-season thing before, and that Jeremiah Williams’s activation may have fundamentally changed the Scarlet Knights. This approach we’re doing has tended to wane in its success the last two years as the end of February has approached, and we’re wary of that.
With UCLA, the issue is that the Bruins are laying 3.5 more points in the markets than they are on kenpom, and while some of this is that the line’s around even (being favored by 0.5 or being a 0.5-point underdog is functionally the same as a pick ‘em situation in a sport that doesn’t involve ties, which means you could argue UCLA’s only laying 2.5 more points here than on kenpom), it’s also just a lot. That would be more of a reach and more of a departure from what’s worked for us than riding with a moneyline. Sometimes, we reach, and we will have to reach here in some fashion, but we never want to reach.
With SMU, the issue is that the markets like Memphis. 6-point spread on kenpom. 4-point spread in the markets. A second issue: SMU’s won a decent number of games in a row, and in college basketball that seems oddly difficult to keep doing, based on the working theory informing these bets (which are up 4.63 units over the last half a month). This is tempered by our belief that SMU is chronically undervalued this year by the narrative, whereas Memphis is chronically overvalued (abolish the AP Poll), but again: It’s a departure from what’s worked. We’re either going to have to depart from what’s worked or take a chance betting against Steve Pikiell’s February renaissance.
Ultimately, what made the call for us is that the SMU moneyline has the shortest odds of the three options, which means the markets view it as the most probable outcome. There’s a line in one of the sequels to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which says flying is about throwing yourself at the ground and missing. We made a lot of money last baseball season not by trying to win (flying) but instead by trying not to lose (missing the ground).
Pick: SMU to win –210. Low confidence.
