Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 852 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 8% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. More broadly, it’s adequate when compared to conventional annual investments, and instead of taking a year to bring that return, it’s taking between three hours and seven months. In short, Joe’s got a good track record.
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Two picks for tonight.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from KenPom, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Incarnate Word @ Northwestern State
Northwestern State is, without question, the better team here. But Incarnate Word is playing their best basketball of the season, and it’s possible that means something.
Incarnate Word has one of the youngest rotations in the country, with just one sophomore and two juniors playing alongside five or six freshmen. They’re getting the plurality of their offensive production from Keaston Willis, a freshman swingman who’s gone off a few times recently, most notably scoring 17 on 5-12 shooting from deep in an overtime upset of Sam Houston State last week. It’s dangerous to say with any confidence that a college basketball team should be expected to continue improving, but it’s more reasonable to think Incarnate Word will continue to grow than it is to think that of most teams. They’re so young and have been so bad at times (they managed a 21-point loss in a 57-possession game two-and-a-half weeks back) that the potential for growth is high. Against a foul-prone team that’s questionable offensively, the cover’s a solid play.
Pick: Incarnate Word +7.5 (-115). Low confidence.
Indiana State @ Bradley
Behind Northern Iowa, the Missouri Valley picture is tight for a while. Loyola is solid. Drake’s not bad. Southern Illinois has been winning games.
Indiana State and Bradley are in the thick of this portion of the picture. Both are 7-5, one game behind Loyola for the conference’s third seed, which comes with a plausible route towards avoiding UNI in Arch Madness and potentially back-dooring one’s way into the NCAA Tournament.
In other words, tonight’s game’s a big one in the Corn Belt.
The teams match up well overall, but Indiana State’s offensive struggles since conference play began loom large. The Sycamores are still the ninth-best three-point shooting team in the country by raw percentage, but their percentage in MVC play is 1.9 points lower—still good, but not ninth-in-the-country good. With their free-throw shooting also an issue, and little success scoring inside, that drop in three-point shooting means more and more. Bradley defends well on the perimeter, forcing teams to both shoot and miss a lot of threes. It should be a slow game, meaning a lot of scenarios come down to one or two Indiana State attempts making the difference for this spread. With a lot on the line in a conference where home-court advantage looms larger than anywhere else in the country, look for Bradley to keep their guests at bay, then seal it at the free-throw line in the final minutes.
Pick: Bradley -6 (-105). Low confidence.
