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 -1.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,375 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.9% across 1,602 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 have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. For futures bets (in both sports and politics) and motorsports bets, odds are taken from the better option between Bovada and BetOnline as our best approximation of the Vegas consensus, which isn’t currently/accurately available online. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI is heavily used in making soccer futures picks. ESPN’s FPI is heavily used in making NFL futures picks.
Purdue-Fort Wayne vs. Eastern Michigan
Emoni Bates has impressed so far at EMU. After often looking lost at Memphis, he looks like a believable former top recruit again. The problem—like it was for Milwaukee last year even in Patrick Baldwin Jr.’s good games—is that the rest of the team is really, really bad. Sometimes, that shapes a line like this one.
Pick: Purdue-Fort Wayne -4.5 (-105). Low confidence.
Arkansas vs. Creighton
We’ve got our first huge matchup in a stacked Maui field, and we…think Arkansas’s the better team. We could say more about this, but it kind of boils down to the idea that Creighton needs to prove it. The ingredients are all there, but Creighton needs to prove it.
Pick: Arkansas +1.5 (-114). Low confidence.
