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 6,911 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. We use our own college basketball model to evaluate college basketball futures.
Active markets today: College basketball, in both single-day bets and futures form.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 117–82–1 and we’re down 3.36 units. We’ve mostly been betting moneyline favorites the last couple months, so our win–loss record doesn’t line up with our net loss.
College basketball futures: We started these on Friday, February 23rd. Our portfolio has 350 units, and it’s looking like we’ll invest roughly 120 of those before conference tournaments are over. We’re currently investing six units per day, but because we were late yesterday, we’re placing eleven today.
Colorado @ Oregon
Will Cody Williams play? We don’t know, at the time this is placed. For as good as Cody Williams is, though, he isn’t Colorado’s most essential player, and he’s often treated as that in the market. Williams is a big step down from KJ Simpson in terms of how much Colorado relies on him, and you could make a case that Colorado leans more on Tristan da Silva and Eddie Lampkin as well. Williams is a great player and a phenomenal prospect, but he isn’t the difference between Colorado being decent and Colorado being good. We like the Buffs to get a huge win tonight in Eugene.
Pick: Colorado to win +142. Low confidence.
Arizona @ UCLA
Mick Cronin gave a weird quote about the NIT a few weeks ago, after the Utah loss, talking about the transfer portal and recruiting. It was odd timing. Even after that defeat, the Bruins looked like they were making a run. They’d won six of seven. They had a 9–6 record in Pac-12 play.
Since, they’ve lost to USC, Washington, and Washington State, the last two by double digits (WSU did pull away at the end). I don’t know whether I’m making too much of this or not, but there’s a chance Cronin’s focus on next season has been too present in his head, and that’s enough for us to take a much, much better Arizona team at Pauley Pavilion tonight. If you subscribe to the theory that teams oscillate in college hoops, I’d say Arizona’s still on the rising side of the wave.
Pick: Arizona –8.5 (–115). Low confidence.
Patriot League Tournament
This is another obscene longshot, like the USC Upstate and Queens ones the last two days, but when the value’s there, we take these, especially if there aren’t any noteworthy injuries. The spread leans further towards Navy tonight than kenpom does, which makes us like this even more.
Pick: Navy to win +12500. Low confidence.
Missouri Valley Conference Tournament
Another longshot here. One thing we’ll note: When Illinois State beat Indiana State this year in Terre Haute, they did it without Darius Burford. Yes, Indiana State was banged up, but whether Burford plays or not, we trust the current kenpom read on the Redbirds. Theoretically, Burford should only make them better.
Pick: Illinois State to win +25000. Low confidence.
Ohio Valley Conference Tournament
UT Martin shared the OVC’s regular season title, and while they do have to play tournament favorite Morehead State in the semifinals, they’ll get Morehead on the second leg of a Morehead back-to-back. 6-to-1 for a regular season co-champion is pretty good odds in the OVC.
Pick: UT Martin to win +600. Low confidence.
Horizon League Tournament
The Mastodons surged early this year, upsetting DePaul in their opener and moving their kenpom ranking from 300th to 195th over just four Division I games. Then, they lost five straight games in January and everyone kind of forgot about them.
They’ve righted the ship lately, closing the Horizon League season winning four of five. They had no trouble on Tuesday against Robert Morris. They’re underdogs tonight at Oakland, but once this tournament gets to Indy, it’s anyone’s ballgame. If they do win tonight, they’re more likely to have the second-best odds than the third-best entering the semifinals.
Pick: Purdue Fort Wayne to win +1200. Low confidence.
WCC Tournament
We don’t trust San Francisco at all. San Francisco disgusts us. Their best performance all year was a loss to Saint Mary’s which they only led for a minute or so in the second half, and Saint Mary’s has turned in plenty of stinkers on the season.
Still, 14-to-1 is good value, and the Dons do get to open WCC Tournament play against the LMU/Portland winner. Then, because the WCC still takes Sunday off post-BYU (I’m not sure if they did this pre-BYU or not, but either way, they’re still doing it), they’ll get Gonzaga on more or less normal rest. We don’t like the team. We do like the price.
Pick: San Francisco to win +1400. Low confidence.
ASUN Conference Tournament
Can we stop losing ASUN bets? Probably not. Austin Peay will probably lose this tournament. We are not denying that probability.
But, again, we like the value, and maybe there’s something to Peay’s 4–0 record this year in overtime games. Maybe the Governors know how to handle chaos. For what it’s worth, they’ve won eight of nine, and they swept their regular season meetings with UNA. (Jacksonville upsetting Stetson would help us.)
Pick: Austin Peay to win +270. Low confidence.
NCAA Tournament
Tennessee, Duke, and Gonzaga are all teams we very much trust to win individual games and very much do not trust to win six in a row. (We’re on the fence about Tennessee, but on the fence means we don’t fully trust them.) There’s value on all three, and since we aren’t placing national championship futures on any of them, we’ll take it. Gonzaga and Duke are in a place where, if we were to place no more futures, a Final Four berth would make our full Final Four portfolio profitable. Tennessee would leave us needing one more of our teams to reach that round.
Pick: Tennessee to make Final Four +275. Low confidence. x3
Pick: Duke to make Final Four +500. Low confidence.
Pick: Gonzaga to make Final Four +1800. Low confidence.
