Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 877 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 6% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. More broadly, it’s adequate 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 tonight.
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, 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.
NJIT @ Liberty – Quarterfinals, Atlantic Sun Tournament
The biggest risk to a Liberty cover tonight might be their own tempo. In this year’s previous meetings with NJIT, games have finished with just 61 and 62 possessions, with NJIT’s own preference to slow the pace fitting in perfectly with the second-slowest team in the country.
Still, Liberty’s defensive might should turn this into an odd-looking blowout. They might not hold NJIT under forty, as they did in January, but keeping them under fifty, as they did in February, is not impossible, with KenPom forecasting a 70-52 final across 61 possessions. Barring a major surprise, Liberty should roll, and barring a minor surprise, the game should end comfortably around or above this 15-point number.
Pick: Liberty -15 (-110). Low confidence.
IUPUI @ UIC – First Round, Horizon League Tournament
UIC entered the year to some hope, returning a notably high share of minutes from what was, last year, a .500 team.
Progress didn’t happen.
While working their way through injury, the Flames sputtered to a 2-6 start, and while they’ve since recovered to finish the regular season one game below .500, they’ve achieved the same 10-8 conference record as last year, with a lower KenPom placement as of now than where the 2019 team ended up.
Thankfully for UIC, there are still chances to make something of the year before graduating their three highest-usage players. The only Horizon League team the Flames haven’t beaten is UW-Milwaukee, a fact as indicative of relative parity within the conference as it is of UIC’s own inconsistency.
The attempted salvage starts tonight, in Chicago, against a visiting IUPUI team UIC beat by nine and five in the pair’s regular season meetings. Don’t make too much of those results. They’re just two games. UIC didn’t play their best in either, and though they also played far from their worst, the expectation tonight should be a double-digit victory, with at least one more chance on the schedule Thursday night.
Pick: UIC -8 (-110). Low confidence.
