Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 808 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 9% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is very good. It’s also good 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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Two picks for today.
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, Team Rankings, 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.
Akron @ Miami (Ohio)
Akron’s three-point shooting was not the problem in Saturday’s loss to Toledo. The Zips hit half of their 26 attempts. The problem was their defense, which allowed a stunning 1.39 points per possession while yielding a 58% clip from deep.
Miami offers Akron an easier matchup than Toledo, but the RedHawk offense is far from incompetent. They do what undersized teams are expected to do: protect the ball and make things happen now and then from deep. With Akron prepared to feast on Miami’s bad perimeter defense, look for a lot of scoring tonight in Oxford.
Pick: Over 144.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Air Force @ Utah State
Air Force should not be expected to beat Utah State by 19 again, as they did two weeks ago when the pair met in Colorado Springs. Still, this is an aggressive line. The Falcons have a trio of shooters hitting more than 40% of their threes with 65 or more attempts. Utah State’s perimeter defense is merely mediocre. Neemias Queta is a matchup problem, but Air Force is adept at getting to the line, and the Utah State big man’s struggled to stay out of foul trouble.
The broader context here is that Utah State hasn’t beaten a Division I opponent by more than 14 since November 18th. Granted, all but one of their opponents have been better than Air Force over that time period, but still—Utah State hasn’t, to date, been a team that blows out Division I foes. Queta’s return does bode well for them on paper, but they’ve played some of their worst basketball of the season with him back on the court. And while one can call the first 35 minutes of their game against Boise State a success, that stretch should only be viewed proportionally within its larger sample—a 45-minute game the Aggies lost by five.
Pick: Air Force +14 (-110). Low confidence.
