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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,192 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,257 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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come 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 Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
We’ve got a college basketball play, and we’ve got a little college football futures action. Nothing dramatic yet, but a little. Here’s the context on where we’re at in each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 19–12. We’re up 5.15 units and we’re up 17%.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 43 units so far, but we have upside remaining on Alabama and limited downside on both Michigan and Texas, with some FCS plays thrown in there as well. We’re working on building paths back towards profitability. This is just one day towards that end—keep an eye out for more this week.
San Diego State @ Grand Canyon
We’re back to a free throw bet, and while SDSU doesn’t have a great percentage from the line, it’s better than the average. We’ve yet to really see one of these come down to free throws. But they’ve been going well!
Pick: San Diego State –2.5 (–110). Low confidence.
FCS National Championship
We still don’t love North Dakota State, but Movelor has them on the same level as Montana, and while Montana’s been hot, that argument works for North Dakota State as well. Movelor says there’s value here, and we’ll believe it.
What makes it easy to believe Movelor is that we have upside on Montana, sharing NDSU’s side of the bracket, and we have even more upside on South Dakota, NDSU’s opponent this weekend. If NDSU does go down, we’ll have a team at 80-to-1 in the Coyotes advancing to face either Montana, who we have on net at 15-to-2, or Furman, who we have at 100-to-1. We’re loaded up on this side of the bracket, and with Movelor continuing to match game spreads but much lower on South Dakota State’s inevitability than the market is, we like our chances of a correction here.
These seven units don’t open up a ton more routes to profitability, but they open some, namely through NDSU and Alabama both winning it all.
Pick: North Dakota State to win +600. Low confidence. x7
