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% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 4,527 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3% across 1,605 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.
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. 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.
Four bowls, plus a little basketball:
Camellia Bowl: Georgia Southern vs. Buffalo
Clay Helton is 2-3 career in bowls. Maurice Lundquist is coaching his first. Our data suggests there may, because of this, be value on Helton’s Georgia Southern.
Pick: Georgia Southern -6 (-110). Low confidence.
First Responder Bowl: Memphis vs. Utah State
Ryan Silverfield is 1-1 career in bowls. Blake Anderson is 3-4. We ride with Anderson.
Pick: Utah State +7.5 (-112). Low confidence.
Birmingham Bowl: Coastal Carolina vs. East Carolina
Neither Chad Staggs nor Mike Houston has ever been a head coach for a bowl game. So, we default to Movelor, which has the line at only 6.7 (yep, this is a tossup).
Pick: Coastal Carolina +7 (-105). Low confidence.
Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Oklahoma State
I don’t think we talk enough about how good a coach Mike Gundy is. This is his seventeenth straight bowl appearance with the little brother school in Oklahoma. How in the hell? Anyway, he’s 11-5, and Jim Leonhard has never coached a bowl game, and our bet is that the 11-5 in that equation is overvalued by the market.
Pick: Wisconsin -4 (-110). Low confidence.
Northwestern State @ Texas A&M
This is the best basketball value we could scrounge up, but we don’t feel terrible about it. Northwestern State just played a ridiculously slow game against Baylor where both teams shot terribly and pulled down loads of offensive rebounds. That could happen again here, but Northwestern State’s defense is bad enough that the expectation should be for the Aggies to score often on the first try.
Pick: Over 145 (-110). Low confidence.
