Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 835 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 very good. It’s also good 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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Three picks for the day.
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.
Iona @ Manhattan
The MAAC standings are tight. Three and a half games are all that separate the leaders (Monmouth and Quinnipiac) from the last place team (Canisius).
With that being said, there’s a clear line between the top five in the table and the bottom six, with a one and a half game gap between the two portions. Manhattan and Iona are on the wrong side of that gap.
For Iona, it’s been an especially frustrating year. The Gaels have one of the most experienced rosters in the country, having returned the bulk of the contributors from last year’s team that finished the regular season with seven straight wins and won the MAAC tournament. Yes, Rickey McGill is gone, but E.J. Crawford and Ben Perez are not, and neither has been close to as effective as they were last year.
There’s plenty of time for a turnaround, but there’s less promise than there was at this point last season, and with starting point guard Asante Gist out today and the Gaels defense as bad as it is, it’s hard to see them taking advantage of a Manhattan offense that struggles to score. Look for an ugly game, full of turnovers, that the Jaspers come away from victorious.
Pick: Manhattan to win (-170). Low confidence.
South Dakota @ Nebraska-Omaha
A look behind the curtain here, before we get back to the MAAC.
Our picks on totals over the month of January performed terribly. There were only eleven of them, but they went 2-9, with a cumulative point differential of something like -79 (long story about why I don’t have the exact figure handy, but it’s close to -79) that suggests the problem is not limited to simply a small sample size. Granted, one of the nine losses happened in overtime, but even taking that out of the equation, the point differential becomes -66, and if you take out Tulsa unders (the market’s been undervaluing Tulsa’s defense, as yesterday’s result once again proved), we become 0-8 with a brutal -121.5-ish differential.
We were not always this bad at picking totals. In November, we went 16-9, with a point differential close to +70.5. In December, we went 11-7, with a point differential near +26. It’s likely something changed around the beginning of conference play.
What would that be?
These picks are heavily numerically based. We look for gaps between the best projections (KenPom, mainly) and the line. Often, this means the line has moved on the games we’re picking, whether from action by the public or by sharps. Early in the season, the numbers seem to have outperformed both if we make the simple assumption that lines with power conference teams moved due to public action and lines with non-power conference teams moved due to bets by sharps. Our sample against assumed publicly-moved lines really is too small from January to make a judgment, but based on how spreads have done as well, it seems our numbers haven’t held up against lines moved by sharps.
This is a line that seems moved by sharps. And we’re following them this time.
On paper, this looks like a game where the over should hit. The teams each play a rather conventional tempo, and both are weak defensively but strong offensively. South Dakota’s one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country, but one of the worst three-point defending teams. Nebraska-Omaha isn’t as good at the shooting part of that sentence as the Coyotes, but they aren’t far off, and the defensive side is similar.
Neither team relies on the three for a particularly high percentage of their points. South Dakota relies on getting to the free-throw line. Nebraska-Omaha relies on scoring inside the arc. And while neither defense excels at preventing those things, they’re better at it than they are at stopping the three.
I don’t know if this is what other bettors are seeing. But they’re seeing something, and this is my best guess. We’ll see how it goes.
Pick: Under 153.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Siena @ Saint Peter’s
Back to the MAAC, and this time the top half.
Both Siena and Saint Peter’s are surging. After a rough three games on the road, Siena’s won three straight, by 13, 23, and 23 (again) respectively. The middle of those three—the 23-point thrashing of Quinnipiac—was particularly impressive. Saint Peter’s also lost three straight at one point, and has also now won three straight, though not by as significant of margins. Both teams are half a game out of the conference lead, meaning today affords a chance for both to either hold position or take over a share of the lead for themselves.
Which makes that happen depends in large part on whether Siena can protect the ball and make their free throws. Saint Peter’s forces turnovers at the 35th-highest rate in the country. They allow free throws more frequently than all but 28 teams. Siena is skilled at getting to the line, but rather average at making those trips count, and they leave something to be desired when it comes to turnovers.
Siena’s rebounding may carry the day. Siena might make enough free throws to make this work. But foul trouble shouldn’t significantly affect a deep Saint Peter’s lineup, and at least at one end of the court, the Peacocks can board with the Saints. Overall, it looks like Saint Peter’s is the undervalued one here, and by a wider margin than pretty much anyone else today.
Pick: Saint Peter’s to win (+105). Low confidence.
