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 –1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 7,022 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, but only in single-day form. No futures markets open by the time we got to these.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 129–94–1 and we’re down 2.99 units. We went through a stretch of mostly betting moneyline favorites, so our win–loss record doesn’t line up with our net loss. We need a big March.
College basketball futures: We started these on Friday, February 23rd with 350 units in our portfolio. We had a bad Champ Week, but we’ve got some solid value alive for the NCAA Tournament, and today we can begin our NIT futures quest.
Howard vs. Wagner
We said this elsewhere too, but we think that back-to-back MEAC Tournament titles is meaningful with Howard. It shows an ability to win in single-elimination settings, which we lean towards being something that exists in college basketball and not something that’s straight-up chance. We’ll take them to get through tonight, and with at least a little breathing room.
Pick: Howard –3 (–110). Low confidence.
Boston College @ Providence
I think this is the move with Providence. There’s a window where they pull it together and win, but without Devin Carter, it’s going to be tough for them. He’s better than a 2.5-point swing from the kenpom line.
Pick: Boston College +3.5 (–115). Low confidence.
Kansas State @ Iowa
We expect Iowa to have some fun with this one, and we expect K-State to keep up. It’s a big number, but that’s Iowa basketball.
Pick: Over 156.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Colorado State vs. Virginia
In the other game in Dayton tonight, we’re riding with Virginia. We kind of think the Mountain West ATS thing in the tournament is real, and if it is, a lockdown Virginia defense might be just the sort of deal to exploit it. The tipoff time being so late is uncomfortable for us here, but we think highly of Tony Bennett, and this means more to his legacy than it does to Niko Medved’s.
Pick: Virginia +2.5 (–105). Low confidence.
NIT
Well this is funny.
They made the take gigantic for NIT futures.
There is no value in the NIT futures market, as measured by our model, aside from a +6% eROI on Villanova. We don’t trust just yet that Villanova will play all its guys.
That said, one of the least bad value plays our model flags is Saint Joe’s at 250-to-1. It pops at –2% on the eROI, only narrowly worse than our all-time average. We expect the NIT futures markets to get a little more reasonable as the tournament goes on, but for now, we’ll drop in this line and see if the Hawks can bite tomorrow night. If they don’t, it’s just one unit. Lots more futures tomorrow.
Pick: Saint Joseph’s to win +25000. Low confidence.
