Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 841 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 pretty good. More broadly, it’s adequate 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 tonight.
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.
UConn @ Tulsa
Tulsa is coming off an emotional, dramatic victory over Wichita State perceived as their arrival on the bubble. It was their sixth straight victory, their seventh in conference play, and it ended a tough three-game stretch in which they also hosted Memphis and traveled to Storrs.
Today, it’s UConn traveling to Tulsa, and the Huskies are looking to take advantage of what could be a somewhat-lackadaisical Golden Hurricane.
I don’t have any data on trap games. I believe they’re real, especially in the college game. I believe they might even be predictable. But even if they are, I doubt any model would view a visit from UConn as a trap game for a team like Tulsa, even taking team names off the jerseys. Additionally, one would expect a big night for attendance tonight, and a crowd ready for another gritty defensive performance from Frank Haith’s team that they have every reason to expect.
UConn, for their part, has looked alright for the last month or so. They’ve only won once in six tries, but they were in every game until the end, held every opponent to little more than a point per possession, if that, and lost solely to teams currently projecting to make the NCAA Tournament or NIT. Dan Hurley doesn’t have a bad team, but he doesn’t have a good one. Frank Haith might have a good one. Even a mediocre one should be able to handle UConn at home.
Pick: Tulsa to win (-145). Low confidence.
Hampton @ High Point
Hampton and High Point are both very bad defensively. They foul often. They allow easy buckets. They don’t force turnovers, and Hampton allows a high number of offensive rebounds.
High Point is bad offensively. They don’t make baskets. They turn the ball over. They do rebound well, and get to the line with some frequency, but it’s not enough to take them far from the ranks of the worst offenses in Division I basketball.
Hampton is not good offensively, but also isn’t exactly bad, especially by Big South standards. They protect the ball, make baskets inside the arc, and get to the free-throw line at will.
Factor all of this together and add in High Point’s home-court advantage, and you get something of a wash between the two teams. It should be close. It’s not unreasonable to expect each team to get to something like 1.10 points per possession, but it could be something of a stretch. That number is around the highest High Point’s achieved at any point this year, meaning it relies on them capitalizing on open shots they don’t have a strong history of making. Another concern about 1.10 points per possession is that if High Point does score that efficiently, Hampton will likely be in foul trouble, because, again, High Point doesn’t make shots from the floor. This would, in turn, figure to hold back Hampton’s offense, because the Pirates are not used to using their bench.
From there, the question is tempo. High Point’s fastest game in conference play was a 70-possession affair against Winthrop, who plays a comparable pace to Hampton. Unlike Hampton, though, Winthrop protects the glass when it’s on defense, and help High Point to 12 of 39 possible offensive boards in that game—a portion not far off from High Point’s average of 32.3%. High Point should, by all indicators, be much closer to 40% in that metric tonight.
In the end, look for High Point to frustrate Hampton’s attempts at running the floor, extending possessions and effectively slowing this game down. The highest total High Point’s seen in regulation in a conference game this year is 139 points. This should break that mark, but it shouldn’t break it by this much.
Pick: Under 148.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Stanford @ Utah
Stanford is a good, young team very much in need of a victory in the front end of the high-altitude road trip. On Saturday, they go to Boulder, and that doesn’t look pretty for a team trying to stay on the right side of the bubble after frustrating losses to Cal and Oregon State over the last two weeks.
The Cardinal boasts one of the toughest defenses in the country, one that should cause big problems for Utah’s freshman point guard, Rylan Jones. Jones has a 25.7% turnover rate, meaning he turns the ball over on more than a quarter of personal possessions. Stanford forces turnovers on 23.0% of opposing possessions, the 23rd-best rate in the country. It’s not easy for Jones to hold onto the ball, and it’ll be especially hard tonight, against the Pac-12’s most effective unit when it comes to takeaways.
Stanford has its own problems with turnovers. And free throws. And offensive rebounds (when it’s on offense). But all three of those things are unlikely to hurt them against a defense like Utah’s. Utah’s disciplined when it comes to fouling. They don’t force turnovers. Their rebounding is nothing special. What the defense does do is allow a lot of easy baskets. Expect that tonight, and don’t be surprised if Stanford runs away with one in Salt Lake.
Pick: Stanford to win (+110). Low confidence.
