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 -1.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,383 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,602 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
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. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer futures picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL futures picks.
College hoops! (We won both yesterday so we’re in a good mood.)
IUPUI @ New Orleans
How bad is IUPUI? We’re not entirely sure. It’s—and this is mean but true—difficult to measure, because they’re so much worse than everybody else. New Orleans appears healthy, New Orleans is capable of handling these Jaguars.
Pick: New Orleans -10.5 (-104). Low confidence.
BYU vs. Butler
Butler keeps getting the love, but at least yesterday, they didn’t look like some team that KenPom’s dramatically undervaluing. Roughly half our data points on them suggest that they are on the upswing but not yet there. We like BYU’s chances to win this.
Pick: BYU +1.5 (-110). Low confidence.
