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 4,590 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’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. KenPom is 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.
Virginia Tech @ Syracuse
Syracuse’s zone is, right now, very effective at getting teams to shoot threes and very ineffective at getting teams to make threes. This is, of course, a bad recipe.
Against Virginia Tech, though, it might be ok. Virginia Tech is not at all the shooting team it was last year, and forced to live by the three, they may well die by the three. We’ll hedge a little on that line of thinking, going with the under rather than a Syracuse cover, but that’s where this is coming from for us.
Pick: Under 140 (-110). Low confidence.
Rutgers @ Northwestern
Two of the best defenses in the country meet and the market thinks this’ll be ten points higher scoring than the raw numbers would indicate? We’ll trust our guy Pomeroy.
Pick: Under 126.5 (-110). Low confidence.
