Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 879 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 6% 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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Three picks for today, plus one future.
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.
Fresno State vs. Air Force – Mountain West Conference Tournament, First Round
Fresno State gets 40% of its points from threes, the tenth-highest portion in the country. It allows 41% of opponent points on threes, somewhere around the country’s highest quartile. Air Force shoots 37% on threes, 33rd-best in the land. It allows 48% of opponent points on threes, the fifth-highest portion of anyone.
In other words, this outcome is most likely going to depend on how well each team shoots from deep.
It’s an area where, at a raw level, Air Force has the edge. Noah Blackwell’s a good shooter for Fresno State, and has been phenomenal in conference play, but Air Force just has more guys who can do it, and who’ve done it consistently all year (to be fair, Blackwell missed a good chunk of nonconference play, along with three Mountain West games). It’s not as binary as it might sound—there are more things Fresno State does better, with interior defense a notable one—but Air Force does look undervalued here, by the numbers, and it’s possible the noon start time (locally) is pushing down the total further than it should.
Pick: Air Force +5.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Pick: Over 138.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Mount St. Mary’s @ Sacred Heart – Northeast Conference Tournament, Quarterfinals
Sacred Heart is not the NEC Tournament favorite. That would be, at this point, Robert Morris, thanks to home-court advantage and most likely a weaker semifinal opponent. Still, Sacred Heart isn’t far from being the best team in the conference, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to win two on the road in this coming week and find themselves dancing.
First up, though, they need to take care of Mount St. Mary’s. And Mount St. Mary’s poses a challenge, as one of the better defensive rebounding teams in the league. Sacred Heart’s offense is good at little, but is very good at grabbing boards, with EJ Anosike alone grabbing 13.3% of possible rebounds on the offensive end, 39th-best in the nation.
But while the Mountaineers are better than most of their neighbors at rebounding, they still aren’t particularly good at it. The NEC has posted one of the highest offensive rebound rates of any conference in America, and while Sacred Heart pulls that upwards on offense, they also push it downwards on defense. Meaning, the fact Mount St. Mary’s has rebounded well in context doesn’t mean they have a particularly good chance of limiting Sacred Heart’s second chance shots.
Pick: Sacred Heart -7 (-110). Low confidence.
Future: Mountain West Conference Tournament Champion
There’s a lot to like about Nevada at these odds. In Steve Alford’s first year, the Wolf Pack has bounced back well after graduating nearly all contributing members of Eric Musselman’s final team. It’s not as transfer-heavy a lineup as you might expect (though Johncarlos Reyes and Jalen Harris are each in their first season of play in Reno), but whatever the composition, the result has been a well-rounded team with few particularly notable weaknesses. They’re a significant underdog, of course, in a tournament that includes not only San Diego State, but Utah State, and a UNLV team that’s playing at home. Still, at 18-to-1, across the bracket from SDSU and UNLV, Nevada’s worth a shot.
Pick: Nevada (+1800). Low confidence.
