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 –1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,288 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly 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.
Active markets today: Single-game college football; single-game college basketball; college football futures. Here’s the context on each.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 83–86–3. We’re down 1.61 units on the year, but we’re up 7.43 units on FBS bowls so far.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 23–28. We’re down 6.53 units, and we’re 3–15 over our last 18 plays. Looking forward to conference play revving up.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 22 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets unless we explicitly mark them as a hedge. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Bowl Games
We got smoked in the mouth on this yesterday, but blindly betting moneyline underdogs in bowl games continues to work for us overall. If we can hit two of these, it’ll be a really good day.
Pick: Tulane to win +335. Low confidence.
Pick: North Carolina to win +190. Low confidence.
Pick: USC to win +200. Low confidence.
Pick: Texas A&M to win +155. Low confidence.
Chicago State @ Cal Baptist
Chicago State won three more in a row after knocking off Northwestern, but they were favored in one or two of those, and overall, they’re still not a spectacular team. They’re in a long-term position to hope, and they’re much more competitive than they were at their nadir, but I’m wondering if part of this line sitting a little closer to even than kenpom has the game is just the result of bored college basketball bettors taking what’s available in today’s two contests.
Pick: Cal Baptist –11 (–105). Low confidence.
CFP Semifinals
We continue with our school of thought from the previous few weeks, which has worked out to the following:
- Even if Washington beats Texas, they’re probably in a TCU situation from last year where they aren’t good enough to win two games at this level.
- The discrepancy where Alabama’s an underdog against Michigan but a favorite compared to Michigan in the futures markets is backwards: If Michigan beats Alabama, that changes our confidence in Michigan more than Alabama beating Michigan would change our confidence in Alabama. (We don’t think the markets are wrong here—we’re guessing sportsbooks gave out a lot of longshot bets on Alabama early in the year and have some liability they now need to cover.)
- South Dakota State is very likely to beat Montana.
Taking all that into account, today’s futures get us to a spot where our overall futures portfolio on the season profits if Michigan beats Texas in the national championship, while moving some other scenarios closer to that mark, and—importantly—giving us opportunities to use leverage if Alabama and Washington win.
Pick: Texas to win –172. Low confidence. x7
Pick: Alabama to win –101. Low confidence. x3
