Editor’s Note: Joe Stunardi is our resident bracketologist, as well as our all-around numbers guy. He’d say that you shouldn’t read too much into it, since the sample size is only 128 bets, but his picks published here and back at All Things NIT have had an average return on investment of 4% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high), meaning he’s about as successful as a bettor who wins 54% of their straight bets.
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Nothing looked great on yesterday’s slate, so I took a day off from picks. For today, I’ve got a mixed bag, including a futures bet on the NCAA Tournament.
As always, lines come from the Vegas consensus at the time I write this.
Presbyterian @ Marshall – CIT Quarterfinal
Presbyterian has had one of the most impressive seasons in college basketball this year. Over the course of head coach Dustin Kearns’ second season, the Blue Hose have climbed from a preseason KenPom ranking of 315th to 172nd, with potential further gains to be made if they play well tonight. It’s possible another team has made a greater climb this year, but I don’t know of one off the top of my head.
Marshall, though, is far from bad. The Thundering Herd returned nearly all contributing members of last year’s team which upset Wichita State in the NCAAT’s first round. They were a contender in Conference USA until a disastrous 13-day stretch did them in.
Marshall has one of the biggest demonstrated home-court advantages in college basketball, and my guess is that this won’t diminish in a CIT quarterfinal. For a program like Marshall, a CIT championship is banner-worthy, though it must be noted that students are on Spring Break.
Both teams love to shoot three’s. Neither team is good (or adequate, frankly) at defending three’s. Presbyterian shoots them more efficiently, though, and has the added advantage of being one of Marshall’s few opponents capable of protecting the ball, which is relevant given how adept Marshall is at creating takeaways.
Marshall might run Presbyterian off the floor, but the numbers suggest Kearns’ squad will make it a tight one.
Pick: Presbyterian +6 (-110). Medium confidence.
Creighton @ TCU – NIT Quarterfinal
It’s not all that common to see a 1-seed and a 2-seed actually meet in their NIT quarterfinal. But TCU and Creighton have each shown no signs of malaise in the tournament so far as they’ve earned the right to play for a trip to New York.
Creighton, as I’ve probably covered by now, is young, shoots three’s, makes three’s, and scores efficiently inside as well, when given the chance.
TCU has more of a senior presence between floor general Alex Robinson and big man JD Miller, but likewise rely on a young core. They’re a fairly balanced team, with a defense geared towards forcing three’s and forcing bad three’s, at that. Robinson, while more turnover-prone than Jamie Dixon would like, is one of the nation’s leaders in assists.
Creighton winning this game would be no surprise, but TCU is favored by more than 3.5 in every projection system I reference.
Pick: TCU -3.5 (-110). Medium confidence.
NCAA Tournament – East Region
I dug through the futures odds for the remaining NCAAT teams, looking for a bet that both our model and FiveThirtyEight’s model gave a positive expected value.
I found exactly one.
Virginia Tech has drawn a brutal straw, playing Duke on Friday night while Michigan State more likely than not awaits the winner. The number one overall seed, then, even in the event of a shocker, probably a team of similar caliber to that number one overall seed.
Yikes.
Still, both our model and FiveThirtyEight have the Hokies with a better chance of making the Final Four than the odds would suggest. We have them at 16%. FiveThirtyEight has them at 14%. The odds have them a 7-to-1 underdog to get to Minneapolis, meaning 12.5% is the cutoff between a positive and negative expected value.
For what it’s worth, Virginia Tech beat Duke in their only matchup this season. It isn’t worth much, though, seeing as it came in Blacksburg, it came in regular season play, Zion Williamson was out with injury, and Justin Robinson was out with injury. Virginia Tech does excel at forcing teams to shoot three’s, and those often aren’t good looks, which bodes poorly for a team whose only 34%+ three-point shooter is Alex O’Connell. On the other side, though, Duke’s own perimeter defense should prove to be too much for the Hokies unless Kerry Blackshear is causing so much damage inside that Duke has to collapse.
And that’s before we even get to Michigan State or LSU (Virginia Tech would likely be favored over the latter, though not by much).
All of this goes to reinforce that this pick is at least 84% likely to be wrong. But, the prospective payoff is such that it appears to be a market inefficiency, likely caused by a consensus regarding Duke that doesn’t fully match the numbers. Do with that as you will.
Pick: Virginia Tech to advance to Final Four +700. Low confidence.
