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 7,026 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,268 completed high and medium-confidence picks. The low confidence picks are the problem. Most of our picks are in the low confidence category.
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 from 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 kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use our own college basketball model to evaluate college basketball futures.
Active markets today: College basketball, but only in single-day form. No futures markets open by the time we got to these.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 131–96–1 and we’re down 3.21 units. We went through a stretch of mostly betting moneyline favorites, so our win–loss record doesn’t line up with our net loss. We need a big March.
College basketball futures: We started these on Friday, February 23rd with 350 units in our portfolio. We had a bad Champ Week, but we’ve got some solid value alive for the NCAA Tournament, and we’ve got some NIT value happening as well.
Saint Joseph’s @ Seton Hall
We believe the Walsh Gym hype, and we believe Seton Hall’s seniors want this. They’re inconsistent, but that’s baked in, and it’s shown up mostly against really good teams.
Pick: Seton Hall –8 (–110). Low confidence.
SMU @ Indiana State
We’re scared of SMU here. We think SMU knows they need to punch Indiana State in the mouth and muck the game up. We’re worried they can pull that piece of it off, even if we think the Sycamores will ultimately survive.
Pick: Under 160.5 (–105). Low confidence.
San Francisco @ Cincinnati
San Francisco has lost twenty straight games against teams who finished the season in the kenpom top 50. They don’t beat teams who are better than them. We don’t think they come close here.
Pick: Cincinnati –7.5 (–110). Low confidence.
VCU @ Villanova
Similarly to with Seton Hall, we trust the Villanova players here. The recipe is so different with those two Big East teams than with the three last night.
Pick: Villanova –9 (–105). Low confidence.
NIT
So, the markets reacted to last night by cutting all the winners’ odds, which is a reasonable thing to do.
In most NIT’s.
The issue here is that they underweighted how expected Ohio State’s loss is, underweighted what it tells us about how Ohio State’s playing, and didn’t give the proper weight to how big an NIT contender Butler was, given how big home court advantage is in a field this tight.
So, there’s narrow positive value available on these two teams entering the second night.
Pick: Wake Forest to win +600. Low confidence.
Pick: Villanova to win +750. Low confidence.
