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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,934 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,249 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.
MACtion is back tonight, and we have some great college basketball on tap. No college football futures today, but we’ll try to get those up tomorrow with the NFL ones for the week. Here’s how we’re doing in each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: It’s getting better. On the season, we’re 4–5. We’re down 1.32 units and we’re down 15%. We’ve won three of our last four.
Single-game college football bets: It’s getting a little worse. On the season, we’re 64–62–2. We’re down 3.33 units and we’re down 3%. We did sweep our MACtion picks last week, though.
Texas A&M @ SMU
This line has a lot of faith in SMU to make a lot of progress coming off a 10-win season. It can happen, and they were busy in the transfer portal, but we’ll take the program that’s consistently shown progress and hope to dodge one of those brutal off nights that plagued A&M last year.
Pick: Texas A&M –5.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Kansas vs. Kentucky
Here’s where we’re at with this: kenpom already thinks Kansas is so, so good. Is it underestimating the Jayhawks? Possibly, sure. But it can only be undervaluing them by so much. This feels a little like the reverse of what happened with Michigan and set them up for such an emphatic cover last night.
Pick: Kentucky +7 (–110). Low confidence.
Akron @ Eastern Michigan
Eastern Michigan isn’t pleasant to watch, but they’re a fine MAC team. Not a good MAC team, but a fine one. It wouldn’t be stunning if they won these last two games and made a bowl.
Akron is interesting to watch, mostly because Jeff Undercuffler Jr.’s a nut, but they’re not a fine MAC team. They’re bad. They’re very, very bad.
Pick: Eastern Michigan –3 (–115). Low confidence.
Western Michigan @ Northern Illinois
Both these teams are chaotic, but we think NIU habitually has gotten too much credit this year. Rocky Lombardi didn’t work out in the Big Ten for a reason.
Pick: Western Michigan to win +165. Low confidence.
