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 4,532 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 more bowls, plus basketball picks back up:
Military Bowl: UCF vs. Duke
We’re 11-10 so far on bowl games, right about at breaking even. Our approach continues to be to pick the coach with the worse career bowl record. We’re not sure it’s working, but over the last two years, they’ve overperformed against the spread. Mike Elko has never coached a bowl game. Gus Malzahn is 3-5, or 3-4 if you exempt the 2013-14 National Championship.
Pick: UCF +3.5 (-115). Low confidence.
Liberty Bowl: Kansas vs. Arkansas
Lance Leipold is 2-1 career in bowls. Sam Pittman is 1-0. 2-1 is technically the worse record, though my anxiety about picking Kansas hasn’t lessened since September.
Pick: Kansas +2.5 (-115). Low confidence.
Holiday Bowl: Oregon vs. North Carolina
The question of whether National Championship Games behave as bowls in this exercise applies here too, but it again doesn’t make a difference. Mack Brown is 14-10 in all career bowls, and 13-9 in non-National Championship bowls (this is the guy’s sixth trip to the Holiday Bowl, interestingly enough). Dan Lanning has never coached a bowl before.
Pick: Oregon -13 (-110). Low confidence.
Texas Bowl: Texas Tech vs. Mississippi
It’s Joey McGuire’s first bowl game as a head coach. Lane Kiffin is 2-3 in them.
Pick: Mississippi -3.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Mercer @ Samford
We don’t love betting conference basketball games—we’ve never gotten the best pulse on them, at least so far—but we’re sticking with our approach for at least today, while the nonconference season wraps up. Our guess is that this total is held down by Ques Glover’s continued absence for Samford, and that it neglects how much worse that absence makes Samford on the defensive end. It isn’t a one-to-one exchange of points, but it makes up some of the gap.
Pick: Over 137.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Wichita State @ UCF
How much do the recent emergences of Melvion Flanagan and Darius Johnson affect this game? Not enough to justify this line.
Pick: Under 124.5 (-114). Low confidence.
