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 –1.9% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,400 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: Only college basketball. We’ll probably have our next last stand on college football futures tomorrow, as well as our NFL futures for the week, but whether tomorrow’s the day or not, it’s not today.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 29–30. We’re down 2.17 units, but we’re 8–3 over our last eleven and up 5.86 units over that stretch
Seton Hall @ Providence
Indiana @ Nebraska
Stanford @ UCLA
Cal @ USC
Providence might be vulnerable, riding high after opening Big East play 2–0, but I think they got away with their letdown game, and Seton Hall seems like a team that might only beat decent competition at home in the conference slate.
Nebraska should beat Indiana. They might not be as talented, but they’re the better team, and the crowd should be a big factor—Indiana’s road win was over a team that’s a mess.
Stanford looks overvalued coming off the Arizona win, and similarly, USC looks undervalued in the wake of the Oregon State loss. UCLA played fine on the Oregon road trip, and USC doesn’t have a history of the bottom falling out since Andy Enfield took over.
We’re putting these into two parlays tonight. As always, our reasoning for doing parlays is that if our line of thinking works on one game, we’ve historically found it’s likelier to work with others. Also, it makes it easier for us to bet on winners and losers while using more conventional math for risks and returns.
Pick: Parlay – Providence & Nebraska to win (+103). Low confidence.
Pick: Parlay – UCLA & USC to win (–104). Low confidence.
