Editor’s Note: For three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,890 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. 2% doesn’t sound amazing, but relative to what else you get on the internet?
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. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. ESPN’s SP+ is heavily used in making college football picks of all kinds, and FPI is used in making conference championship futures picks.
Monmouth @ St. John’s
Monmouth goes to Queens tonight looking for a big upset, and while the market and KenPom’s on numbers seem mostly aligned on the likelihood of that happening, there’s a discrepancy over how many points the teams will score. The best explanation for this discrepancy is probably Mike Anderson turning the knob way up on Esahia Nyiwe’s role on Sunday, when the big man got his first start of the year. Nyiwe isn’t a particularly one-sided player, though, and overall, Monmouth—who knocked off Cincinnati in the Queen City over Thanksgiving weekend—has the defense and the slower pace to keep St. John’s within arm’s reach. This is tighter than most we like, but it does lean under.
Pick: Under 154.5 (-115). Medium confidence.
Denver @ New Mexico
Denver’s quietly having a decent enough year, climbing from 344th in KenPom entering the year to 328th tonight. It’s not good, but it’s not that bad, and the Pioneers have yet to lose by more than 14, even against some teams a good bit better than the Lobos. There’s no reason to think an upset will happen, but the market seems to have applied that logic to the spread, pulling it away from where it should lie.
Pick: Denver +14 (-110). Medium confidence.
