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 -3.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,011 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of 0.9% across 1,336 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.
Just college basketball today.
Rider @ Providence
Rider has a little buzz tonight, returning some high percentage of last year’s scoring. The problem with the buzz is that Rider wasn’t very good last year. They finished four games below .500 in the MAAC. And if this is Providence doubt, well, KenPom has Providence 55th in the country and still has this spread at 15.
Pick: Providence -13 (-105). Low confidence.
Mercer @ East Carolina
Former Tennessee assistant Mike Schwartz starts his head coaching career tonight for ECU, and the market seems to think his Pirates will slow things down like Rick Barnes’s teams at Tennessee have generally done. I’m not entirely convinced they will (style isn’t that simple), and even if they do, the difference might only come out to a possession or two. That’s enough to swing an under, but it’s not necessarily a lot.
Pick: Over 132.5 (-110). Low confidence.
